Once again that whingeing and complaining retailer NAAS (Name and address supplied) is bemoaning his fate and boring us with yet another opinion on unfair competition from internet sellers and, what's more, his views are endorsed by kbbreview by awarding him '
letter of the month'!
What's wrong with these people? - Do they think that by banging on about it, they will have companies shutting down their e-commerce websites? Of course not, internet shopping is here to stay and I'll bet a tenner that NAAS has availed himself of more than one bargain from a web supplier - so he can't have it both ways.
Perhaps NAAS should take an objective look at his business and, if all he is doing is funding a showroom to purvey goods that could just as easily be purveyed on the internet, then perhaps it is time he packed up and got himself an e-commerce website?If however, he is offering a full design and installation service, I would like to know why on earth he is allowing his clients to cherry pick their way through a proposal and reduce a £15,000 job to £5,000?
At my company, a £15,000 deal is just that - a blend of design, supply and installation that totals £15,000. Individual prices do not come in to it and if we are ever asked to itemise a quote, we simply refuse.Sometimes a conversation can lead into what we charge for the items contained in our design, but all we say is that our pricing structure is based on the manufacturer's list prices.
We rarely get an adverse reaction to this but, if internet prices are brought into the arena by a client, we pass it off by saying something like "well you see we have an agreement with all the suppliers on the web - we won't compete with them on price - and they won't compete with us on service". We then change the subject.
Potential 'troublemakers' can often be filtered out at source we find. The clients that come in and ask about prices - especially with remarks like "I can get 15% off Matki - can you get near that?" are not people that we get excited about. They might just be picking our brains on design, so we don't waste time with them - especially if there are other clients that seem less obsessed with price and more appreciative of what our company offers.
So my advice to NAAS is to let the web boys do what they are good at and concentrate on what he is good at. Thus in one deft move he will, if he is any good at design and installation, reduce not only the number of competitors he is battling with but also the number of pain-in-the-butt customers he gets.In my opinion, NAAS will then become a better person - he will be less bitter and twisted and he will have more time to grow his business with a much nicer class of clientele.
He will be dealing with people that will really appreciate what his company can do for them and, perhaps more to the point, people that can see that the service he offers is not only well worth the price, but also one that an internet company would never have a snowball's chance in hell of providing.
Stuart Irving, Ablutions Bespoke Bathrooms
