Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Re: Six year responsibility!!!.
I wrote an article about this last month – EU 2 year Guarantee I’ve just added a link at the bottom of it to Ken’s Consumer Rights Myths article.
My interest is purely in trying to represent the true consumer rights situation and dispelling any myths as well as highlighting if consumers (of which we all are) are being done out of their rights. I have equal dislike for consumers expecting more than they are entitled to and retailers refusing to give customers their rights.
I very much dislike the fact that retailers are currently unfairly carrying the burden of the Sales of Goods Act where they are expected to honour rights at their own expense but have no comparable rights against the people they bought the product from, which I articulate in one of my comments on the article. I don’t tend to worry about the big retailers but the burden is very high on small retailers. The only thing they can do to protect themselves is to make sure they only sell decent stuff – which isn’t a bad idea 🙂
Could UKW lobby for equal rights for retailers?
Re: scrappage scheme …..for white goods…!!!!
I wrote an article on this subject some weeks back but before there was any mention of a scrapage scheme. I questioned the whole concept of throwing away working appliances and replacing them with mostly inferior quality ones which may not last very long – at great expense.
Spending hundreds of pounds on a new appliance in order to save (as in the case of a 10 year old washing machine) £5 a year on energy makes no sense to me – especially when the people telling us to do this are the people representing white goods sales.
However there is more to it than that because of water savings but I worked them out at only £6 per year currently and modern washing machines don’t seem to rinse anywhere near as well as old ones because of the greatly reduced water consumption. Then there’s Co2 saving which I found more complex and remain unsure about.
My suspicion is that this is all about meeting the EU quotas for reducing emissions and generating extra sales but expecting the public to pay for it by dumping their current appliance. Most people aren’t likely to see any saving at at all or for years when you take into account their expense in buying it a few years before they would be forced to naturally upon its demise.
If the government is going to subsidise it then it puts a different slant on things but I’m still not sure it makes true environmental sense to dump millions of appliances that are working perfectly ok. If I’ve got it wrong I’m happy to alter my article.
Do we really need to dump our old inefficient appliances to save money and the world?
I hope I haven’t got things wrong. It is no doubt a complex matter. The case for refrigeration may be stronger as potential savings should be higher.
Re: washing machine with r/h door hinge!
If anyone knows any more than the three I mention here I can add them to the list http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/wordpress/washing-machine-door-hinged-on-the-right/
Re: Worst Week Ever
kwatt wrote:If it’s any consolation, as I monitor a few bits and bobs, net traffic is down in general bar the odd blip as well. This would suggest a general slowdown all round as well so I expect it’s not specific to us, it’s just one of those things.
K.I can confirm that I’m also finding a drastic drop in conversions through my affiliate’s. People aren’t even buying online much any more at the moment unless they are going somewhere else.
Re: internet advertising
A few years back I wrote a very basic page for Chris Ready when I had a bit more time than I do now. The page was designed to be simple and as far as I know has had no promotion and few other places link to it. Despite that it’s there for anyone to find.
Imagine someone in his area sees his van around or parked on their road while he does a job. They can go to Google and type in “Chris Ready”, or “Chris Ready Services” and immediately find him. They can then read a big advert for his services and find his telephone numbers and email address. Try it yourselves and see.
Imagine someone at the pub says they used Chris Ready and he was all right. They can even find him using their iPhone or otherweb-enabled phone and get his number there and then.
Imagine someone in Birmingham deciding to search for “dishwasher repairs in Birmingham” – guess who’s number 1 (the first non-sponsored position) – Chris Ready is.
If someone searches for “Tumble dryer repairs in Solihull” he’s half way down the page. He’s number 6 for “domestic appliance repairs in Solihull”.
He doesn’t rate for all relevant searches but then again the page hasn’t been promoted or tweaked and adjusted. It could perform much better but he’d need to invest more time and money into it.
A single page like that can still come up in Google if it’s properly designed and should cost very little.
Re: internet advertising
petalpop wrote:not on there anymore as no results
Oh I was hoping to have a look and advise.
Promoting a business on the web is no different to being in Yellow pages or Thompson local or the local paper in that just having a presence doesn’t guarantee any results.
If there are other people offering the same services people may chose them over us if our presence doesn’t impress enough, or say the right things or many other reasons. We’ve all searched for something and clicked a link only to just click the back button and try something else almost straight away. Research shows people make very instant judgements about any web page they arrive on and we have less than a couple of seconds to impress them that the page is worth spending any time on never mind that we are the right people to call.
Even if a web page is number 1 it may not perform well if it doesn’t convince people. I’m not saying the page wasn’t any good because I can’t know I haven’t seen it but I’m just exploring some of the possible reasons it might not have converted enquiries.
There’s not much chance your page would have come up for car repairs in chelmsford at all. People finding you will have found you because of the content of your page and/or the text surrounding any links to it from elsewhere.
If you still had the pages up you could try to improve things. As I said before, it’s great to have a page just for your existing customers or for prospective new customers to look at from your normal advertising and business cards.
Re: internet advertising
petalpop wrote:one line was “washing machine repairs in chelmsford”
i moaned when no calls so they made it so i was 1st page if someone put
washing machine repairs in chelmsford or any of
washing, machine and repairs or in chelmsford
then i had 23 views on the web site but no phone calls
presumably because someone was looking for car repair in chelmsford
so i would show because of the in chelmsfordWhich is your site?
Re: internet advertising
petalpop wrote:but unless you want to be on page 102876 of 283736353 on google you have to pay
Or learn how to do it yourself, which is the best way but very time consuming.
Re: internet advertising
petalpop wrote:just to buck the trend i have a web site
am on yell.com used a company to get on the 1st page of google
calls from them over 3 month period 0 😥
yellow pages 5-6 calls a day 😀
go figure 😕It depends on what search you were on the first page for, and whether others above you had more tempting details quoted at the side of the link or not. If someone decided to search for a repairer in your area what phrase would you guess they’d use, was this the phrase you were on the first page for?
Re: internet advertising
I reckon most people don’t use Yellow Pages any more, certainly not the younger generations. I get a new Yellow Pages & Thompson Local each year but bung them in a cupboard and never use them. If I want anything or anyone I just search online.
This year my Yellow Pages featured just one page of washing machine repairers. 15 years back this would have been at least 15 pages full of ads.
I think a web site is essential but if no one sees it it’s not much use. You could still have stuff on there that helps existing customers though. Maybe to give basic advice or make your terms and conditions available. You could use one to send prospective customers to by advertising the URL on leaflets and other conventional adverts and give more details about your business than could fit on the conventional advert.
If you have a web site and want to get new work from it though you – or someone on your behalf – needs to understand SEO (search engine optimisation) or advertise it on something like Yell.com
Re: how much does it cost to employ a multi-skilled engineer
I thought you’d have a pretty good idea. It’s roughly in line with what I estimated when I said at least three times their basic wage. It would work out at about £240 – £320 per day assuming around 250 actual working days.
Re: New way to replace Bosch brushes.
Martin wrote:
Chris posting that video did puzzle me a bit for that very reason Andy. What I think is a great trade video on YouTube is this one. 🙂
I’ve been back and read all the thread now. Chris did say it was part of the spares@ project. If the video had some advertising about UKW it would have made more commercial sense. That would have involved some processing though, maybe a caption underneath with the spares@ web address could be added? That way it would be a commercial venture and perfectly legit in the modern world 🙂
Re: New way to replace Bosch brushes.
Sorry, didn’t have time to read the entire thread but I did notice the old argument about whether or not to give advice to the public.
In my opinion, posting videos on how to do something is great if you are a member of the public trying to help fellow consumers as long as the advice is good.
If you are in the trade, then posting totally free advice with no commercial gain at all seems a bit pointless and undermines your own business as well as others for no good reason.
Posting free advice where you do get a financial gain such as through advertisements, or by charging for the advice or by selling the spares etc is a perfectly legitimate 21st-century method of trading. It might undermine fellow engineers sticking to the old methods but this is the modern day and traditional repair businesses have long since been under threat and in decline. New methods of earning money from knowledge need to be exploited.
Every single engineer in the trade has the ability to compete in this new market too. We can all make our own how-to videos which will live or die by how good they are. If the advice and videos are made to make money it’s hard to criticise them, you cannot hold back technology and you cannot enforce traditional methods. The Internet is only going to grow stronger and stronger and more people will use it to find information and buy stuff.
Re: New way to replace Bosch brushes.
Martin wrote:
leavemetogetonwithit wrote:
and let us know if this is how you do it. 😆This is how Penguin45 does it.:wink:
That gives a whole new meaning to working out in the field – sounds like you’re out in the countryside and stopped in a layby for a picnic 🙂
Re: Free Estimate.
RS wrote:The thing is really that if you scan the local rags and the Thompsons or yellow pages you will still find quite a number of repairers that are willing to give free estimates to customers
If I scan my Yellow Pages there is virtually no one left. Around 10 years ago the washing machine repairs section covered about 12 pages, with about 70{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of adverts covering half or full page. The majority offered free estimates and no call out charges. Contrast that with today and there is just one full page of adverts and the majority of them are manufacturers.
And this is the yellow pages that covers Sheffield (the fifth largest city in the UK) and surrounding towns.
