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I notice that the site shows as shut down as well now, so that was pretty immediate although I’ve not had the letter yet. Thanks for the information Appboy, it’s always appreciated.
I have been talking to the software guys this afternoon and they’re still beavering away at the module as we want it right on launch. Surprisingly, the amount of people requesting that their details are added has been pretty damn poor which I can’t fathom at all. I mean it’s like, “here’s some potential free money” and they don’t want it. Go figure! 😕
K.
Hey Mark, you seen the Scottish gags on here?! 😆
And Dave has some cracking Cornish/Devon ones that a certain gentleman from up North mailed him today.
K.
Re: A Vision of the Future?
You have a point Penguin, in that there are a few things being discussed here, or there are now at least. It is very interesting though.
You are correct, to GIVE the repairers the top 25 or even up to 100 lines in some cases would cost a manufacturer next to nothing and do them a power of good for their image with both repairers and customers. There are some really nifty ways to do it it’s just that no-one has ever really, seriously, looked at approaching the problem of “first-fix” from that perspective.
The problem you have Penguin is that you are looking at this with a common sense appraoch that offers a “best” solution for repairer, customer and manufacturer. IME, manufacturers tend to look at it from the angle of what they can profit by from the situation. Just to illustrate what I mean, if you do warranty service with 10 engineers on the road then you’re liable to be carrying upwards of £3K per van and about £30-40K at base for a decent sized contract. Following the train of thought on actual value from yesterday that means that the cost to the manufacturer for those spares was probably in the order of £2000 and yet you’ve just shelled out at least £60,000, £58,000 of which is now in Mr Manufacturers coffers. So we are, in effect, being used to subsidise the manufacturer, pure and simple.
Now I suspect that manufacturers are starting to notice that we’re not stocking spares the way we used to do, I noticed the downturn nearly ten years ago, and high value spares are just a non-starter these days. They don’t care as they’re not the ones having to make the double visit. However, what they do care about is not having our money tied up in thier stock as well as a higher BER rate as people quote high to cover the costs involved in double visits and special orders etc.
Lawrence touched on brand loyalty in his post and this is a very important aspect that is currently being overlooked by many manufacturers, they call it “retention”. For many it is low and probably getting worse as time goes by, with the ethos in place from many manufacturers in this day and age I don’t see that trend abating anytime soon for many. You see it’s a stagnant market with no new products or areas to get into so the only options for a manufacturer to increase market share (which the bean counters dictate has to happen) is to buy up rivals (as we’ve all seen) or retain and grow the customer base, which in many cases is failing.
According to the figures I have, there are approximately 1.4 million washers sold per anum in the UK, that figure remains pretty much a constant. So if manufaturer A wants a bigger slice of the pie he either buys up manufacturer B (until the EU or UK government step in and call foul) or they slash prices in attempt to shift boxes, or at least that seems to be the current thinking in the halls of power. IMO it’s wrong.
Of course such thinking and actions only opens the door for the suppliers from the likes of the Far East and/or the former Baltic states who can produce cheaper. But bear in mind that “Haier” for example, does not carry the same weight with a customer as a brand as say, Hotpoint, Hoover or Zanussi. A lot of this type of marketing comes down to customer perceptions of the product that they are buying and, the bit that affects us, the after sales care that they will recieve. But in order to compete with those manufacturers on price it looks as if many are sourcing spares and/or switching production to the low labour cost areas of the world.
Of course there are other options but they go beyond the standard issue five year corporate business plan and long-term thinking does not appear to factor in. Plus you have the internal politics in large companies where everyone has to attempt to justify their existence and, therefore, show results. Just look at the Hoover flights promotion, a classic example of thinking a bit differently but it was very badly handled both literally and from a PR point of view, but it got results in the short term.
The same revolution and rationalisation has already taken place in the car industry, although they do still have their issues of course and it is slightly different in many aspect there are many parallels that can be drawn. For example, Volvo have a customer retention in excess of 70{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} and have had for many years, as do Honda. Manufacturers in our industry probably wish they could achieve that, maybe they should open their eyes a bit more and take a closer look at the situation and the marketplace they find themselves in.
K.
Is it totally dead? If it is it could be either the mains block or timer in a standard type oven but I am not familiar with that particular model.
K.
As I had posted elswhere Brian a certain manufacturer had a bill for spares of £100,000 from agents and yet the COST to them was less than £3000, does that seem right to you as generally all the manufacturers work to similar margins? Given the actual retail price of the appliances that would seem about right.
Whilst I would expect a spare to be more expensive than a proportional sum based on the price of the appliance I would not and, neither do customers, expect them to be so hiddeously expensive which, regardless of how you slice it, they are. Customers aren’t stupid entirely, they realise that a module costing circa £100 for an appliance that cost them £200-ish is just the manufacturer extracting the Mickey. We are also not stupid and we know that, for example, Askoll pumps are bought in massive bulk for about a £1 a throw, landed. These are then sold on at upwards of 16 times the cost which is a huge margin to have on any product.
To use the example of the motor you gave, I should imagine that that motor would cost in the order or £15 or less to have mass produced so, even selling out at £37-ish it still represents a 150{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} mark up over cost. A luxurious margin that we can only dream about.
In the end the many of the spares prices are not in any way relational to the cost of the appliance and certainly not to the landed cost of an appliance to a manufacturer then people will pick up on that. The classic examples are pumps, door boots, motors and modules. It’s no one manufacturer that the fault lies with, it’s the entrenched believe in spares departments that they are there to make loads of money and the internal pressures placed on those departments to do so that drives the ethos.
Whilst the spares cost to to the cost of replacement remians the way it is and, in many cases gets worse by increasing spares costs, then the situation will not improve. In fact it may well worsen untill WEEE comes along and bites hard because, eventually, whether the manufacturers like it or not WEEE or something of its ilk will condem, financially, the “throw away society” as governments are determined to halt it. The trouble is that the manufacturing sector, to a large extent, has brought this on itself by increasingly outsourcing to low labour cost countries, degrading the quality of the goods in some aspects and bringing down the “cost to replace” and this is not just a symptom of our industry, it’s just affecting us all badly now.
What I and others are trying to get through to manufacturers is that there is an increasing volume of customers out there that are not out to simply shop on price, they’ve done that and learned the lessons and are now seeking a better quality of product. Fancy features will sell to some extent, like intranet connectivity, until customers and the press in particular cotton onto the fact that it’s not just as useful as once they thought.
The manufacturer’s problem right now is that all the products are stale, there’s been little or no inovation since the advent of Zanussi’s Jetsystem that actually equate to sales other then the normal replacement cycle. So your all competing for a bigger slice of the same pie that is there year in, year out and the only way that many see to do that is through pricing. It’s a classic marketing mistake and one that is bound to lead to casualties in the industry as it already has, just look at the number of brands that have been snapped up in the past 10-15 years.
Enough market analysis for one day.
K.
Eh, £35 labour…. I think not, that is totally unrealistic for a chargeable call from most companies that have employees. I won’t even touch new contract work at that.
We charge £50 excl VAT and we’re cheap! putting the repair @ £131.60 excl VAT. The £37.49 only applies if said distributor passes on that saving, many do not and, as has been witnessed on here many, many times discounts to trade accounts vary wildly with some people even being charged retail prices or higher!
What you also have to remember is that we have to, in effect, warranty that spare for a year as trying to return spares that are faulty is virtually impossible, even as an authorised agent. Many distributors have an “no returns” policy as well and this accounts for selling at the retail price to a large degree. However, you also have to remember the double calls we make for “special” spares with virtually no margin at all and, what is there is more than wiped out due to the fact that it is a double call, some of the profit in a repair like this offsets that cost.
Frankly, start quoting customers >£100 on a 2+ year old washer that can be replaced or was purchased for less than £250-300 and you’re sunk, you won’t get the repair for many of them as it is more economical to replace it. Start talking that sort of money for a 5 year old appliance and there’s almost no chance at all, many of them won’t even pay for the call let alone the spares.
Even the insurers now write these off, I’ve spoken to some that don’t even go beyond the word “motor” or “module” they just say, “oh well, we’ll write that one off” as they know it’s not economical to repair.
The reason is simple, the appliances have been grossly devalued over the years and this is the result.
K.
4700, the model number you have is incomplete it will be AHY36**, you’re short two digits and we’d need that to track it down I think.
There’s no generic kit as far as I know that will do what you need.
K.
Re: A Vision of the Future?
I bet you all thought I’d forgot this little thread hadn’t you? 😉
I read, re-read and read again P’s post trying to decide how much was humour, how much was hope and how much was an exrapolation of what has already occurred. you see, you have to remember that whilst seemingly benign, those damned penguins are resilient little buggers as well as pretty damned cunning. 😉
If only it were true though. If only we could encourage the industry to stop being so stupid and wake up to itself and make many people realise that irrespective of how they regard the independent trade, be it with a spot of contempt or admiration, all we want is to be better. The burning question begged by that is which manufacturers and insurers wish to go forward with that in mind and with an open-minded philosophy?
Thanks, but I’m quite happy in what I do now but I am not averse to change, change is a good thing even when it is for the worse as you learn. I have no wish to become anything other than what I am, I’m just vocal, that’s all. I love the trade and I respect the independent trade and realise that they have a place and a certain power if you like, that has to be respected and protected. To that end I will do what I can for the independent trade, always have, always will. Thankfullly I’m not alone in that endevour as this site shows time after time.
K.
PS if anyone wants to offer me £50M please contact me immediately as I’ll be very well behaved and most attentive. 😉
Indeed. Let’s just say it’s not the image that I would want presented for an organisation such as DASA.
K.
