Awful mail order company

Mailspeed - my favourite chandler. Buy all my stuff from them and find they give an excellent service at competitive prices - there again I don't use their delivery service as I am fairly close to their Burnham shop.
What amuses me is that all the prices in their catalogue end in a 9 eg £4.99, £139.99 etc. and yet all the Euro prices are in whole Euros - don't know whether they round them up or down but I suspect our continental friends aren't getting as good a deal as we are.
 
A couple of months ago I decided to order this riveter from justoffbase.co.uk. The cost was £18.64 including VAT. I emailed them for a P&P quote. This was the reply:

The cost of sending this item to you in Athens would be £45.00
Please advise whether you wish to proceed
Kind regards
Tina
Justoffbase

Next try. An Amp-hour meter to check both my fridge's consumption and my solar panels' charge. I found a not-so-expensive tool, Dr Watts.

UK: Item £41.70 + P&P £6.70 = £48.40 + VAT £8.47 = £56.87 = €84.88
US: Item $58.95 + P&P $6.70 = $65.65 = €50.45

I went with the US dealer expecting a couple of months delivery time. Surprise! Item dispatched Monday and arrived home next Tuesday.

And you cannot blame B. Liar or the immigrants or the weather for this /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
UK-France parcel force rate 0.5Kg £17.30
UK-France post office airmail max 2Kg £10.69
post office insurance add £3.50 = £14.19

= pretty fare mail order company

Where do you get £4.00 from I'll change our carrier
 
It's all part of the internet model...

Local Supplier charges premium rates to cover overheads and has good after sales.
Internet Supplier A charges slightly less the Local Supplier but does good deals on delivery/after sales.
Internet Supplier B charges cheapest possible price and ensures he doesn't lose out on delivery/after sales, hence not cheap delivery and premium rate phones.

This applies across all stuff bought, looked at Laptop Power supplier recently. Local shop very high price, Internet retailers, total cost, Part&P&P very similar across suppliers. Some had cheaper Part more expensive P&P others opposite.
Problems arise when customers expect the best of all three. You pays your money etc.

Dave
 
Never mind getting stuff to Europe - many companies surcharge for the Highlands and Islands too! Try living up here - only Royal Mail and TNT seem to offer the same pricing as the rest of the UK ...
 
Seamark Nunn, Ordered IcomM71 3.20 yesterday at a good price153.15 plus 4.95 delivery just arrived 10.30 am. Carrier Parcelforce.I know its not to France but they both deserve a plug for super service.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Last year I ordered a length of rope with an eye splice from the same company. The rope arrived with a note to say the splice would follow when in stock!...DOH!

When I spoke to nice lady in the office she offered to put a splice in the post and I would I be able to fit it myselff...DOUBLE DOH!

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder how much the P&P on the splice would have been? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif........I would have been tempted to have taken her up on the offer /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
UK-France parcel force rate 0.5Kg £17.30
UK-France post office airmail max 2Kg £10.69
post office insurance add £3.50 = £14.19
= pretty fare mail order company
Where do you get £4.00 from I'll change our carrier

[/ QUOTE ]

firstly the item was not 2kg - that is the minimum charge weight that Mailspeed have chosen.. I worked it out at being around £4.00 from my weight list.

Even at 2kg which it was not - why on earth would I want to spend £3.50 insuring an item of £20 ish.. stupid.. I send hundreds - yes hundreds of items to and from UK - France - in all the years one - ONE has gone missing - and that has a question mark... On that basis I am more than happy to carry the risk myself and if the Mailspeed co have proof of posting wheres the problem?

So to use YOUR small packet post figures on 2Kg... if it were £10 (and it would have been less) On what does the other 33% get spent on - a jiffy bag...?
And that is my whole point -= for less than £10 the package could have been sent...

Frankly I could not care a jot.. I have found the same item for £5 less from another supplier and a postage charge of £6-50 -- Silly old Mailspeed -
Michael
 
[ QUOTE ]
Michael,
Delivery of this item on it’s own would be £4-£5
Regards
Chris



From: Michael Briant [mailto:michael@michaelbriant.com]
Sent: 15 February 2007 07:36
To: sales@force4.co.uk
Subject: Deck Mounting Kit - 4 plastic, deck mounted cradle brackets supplied with 4 webbing straps and plastic buckles.,Product Code: 510003

Hello,

can you give me a delivery price to La Rochelle France 17000 for the following please?

Deck Mounting Kit - 4 plastic, deck mounted cradle brackets supplied with 4 webbing straps and plastic buckles.
Product Code: 510003
Many thanks
Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

So many people seemed to be suggesting I was being unfair to Mailspeed - Just had the above exchange of emails with Force 4 Chandler who clearly like European as well as UK customers.
On the Face of it Mailspeed would have made and extra £10 profit on exactly the same item as well as want £5 more than Force 4 ....
Interesting huh?

Michael
ps have just placed my order with f4 and will go their first in future - recommended!
 
Icom M71...

[ QUOTE ]
Seamark Nunn, Ordered IcomM71 3.20 yesterday at a good price153.15 plus 4.95 delivery just arrived 10.30 am. Carrier Parcelforce.I know its not to France but they both deserve a plug for super service.

[/ QUOTE ] Their website says it's only £149.95. Did you order online?
 
Has anyone checked what it actually costs. I regularly send 2Kg packages to France.If I use stamps (approx £12- ) then a high percentage of my packages do not arrive. The alternative is business post which unlike the post is insured. That costs £13.80 +vat. Securicor, DHL and UPS are all more expensive. Don't blame the retailer because we all get ripped off by transport charges.
 
Yes but they gave you a price and if you don't like it you can buy from somebody else. I have found most stuff cheaper in France so I'm surprised you buy from the UK.
 
Re: Icom M71...

I paid 149.95 plus 4.95 carriage grand total 154.90. bought on line, sorry for that senior moment! packing note said 153.15...is list price
 
crossbones I refer you to my post above yours - Force4 are charging £5 less for the same item and shipping it for £4-5 ..............

All this 2kg business is only that Mailspeed have chosen to make that their limit for their lowest shipping charge of £15 even if the item weighs 1oz !!!!

I send and receive hundreds of packages a year between the UK and France using French small package 'letter' type priority post.. Only ever had one go missing!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yes but they gave you a price and if you don't like it you can buy from somebody else. I have found most stuff cheaper in France so I'm surprised you buy from the UK.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly - and I have walked away - was just irritated by their greedy approach to p&p... in business if you are good with your customers they tell at least one other person... If you are bad with your customers they tell at least 10 other people..

As I live in France I can compare prices and frequently they are cheaper here than the uk... There are some items - notably of UK manufacture which are cheaper in the UK than France... Internet shopping in France is not as popular as the UK so it is the local chandlers for most stuff...
 
[ QUOTE ]

- was just irritated by their greedy approach to p&p...


[/ QUOTE ]

Does this imply that we could define local Chandlers as greedy because they tend to charge more than Internet.....should we name and shame those that do.
If you want to go elsewhere for goods,based on stated prices, no problem, just not sure about vilifying a supplier who has a business model/pricing structure you disagree with.

Dave
 
[ QUOTE ]
parcelforce price to france for 2kg is about £25

you can trim some off that with negotiation for repeat business, but even so.

[/ QUOTE ]Under 2 Kg is VERY much cheaper to France. I recently split a parcel into two and send them for about £10 each as they were (just) less than 2 Kg. The price for the original parcel was over £30! My first attempt at repacking had one of them just over 2 Kg and it was nearly £25 as you say...
 
[ QUOTE ]
just not sure about vilifying a supplier who has a business model/pricing structure you disagree with

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes you are absolutely right and I did not intend to do so... The problem of course is that frequently people do not read all of the thread or only part of it - I do that too...

I just started out by trying to state what appeared to be a fact - That Mailspeed appear to try to make a substantial profit on P&P... various others started quoting tariffs about different things or suggesting I was making the figures up....

finally I cut and paste the exchange of emails with Force4 who charged 1/3rd of mailspeed P&P and £5 less,,, good for them. appear to be long established mailorder traders who are pleasant to do business with.

It was never my intention to vilify Mailspeed merely to point out that their P&P terms were very unatractive -almost greedy if you happen to live the other side of the channel... wish I had never started this ---
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
just not sure about vilifying a supplier who has a business model/pricing structure you disagree with

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes you are absolutely right and I did not intend to do so... The problem of course is that frequently people do not read all of the thread or only part of it - I do that too...

I just started out by trying to state what appeared to be a fact - That Mailspeed appear to try to make a substantial profit on P&P... various others started quoting tariffs about different things or suggesting I was making the figures up....

finally I cut and paste the exchange of emails with Force4 who charged 1/3rd of mailspeed P&P and £5 less,,, good for them. appear to be long established mailorder traders who are pleasant to do business with.

It was never my intention to vilify Mailspeed merely to point out that their P&P terms were very unatractive -almost greedy if you happen to live the other side of the channel... wish I had never started this ---

[/ QUOTE ]

This question of P&P comes up a lot with my comparing prices before buying ....

Often an article is discount price - but P&P is higher ... total often equals full whack price...
E-bay is rife with P&P tricks ... low price, but high P&P to get around commission payable to Ebay ...

Here in Latvia even though we are EU and many co's now offer EU wide P&P single rates / kg .... Latvia and other baltic states are separated out ... with higher rates. So small companys have sprung up eg in Germany ... you give them the article ID, where etc. and pay them. They then ship to you at price plus commission and much lower P&P .... near 100% of the time a lot cheaper than direct order and supply.

Isn't that crazy that company's can actually make biz out of this very thing ??

Anyway - I have a good relationship with TNT ..we do all our biz with them and they give discounted rates that mean we don't need anything else !!
 
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