RIP Cruisermart....

[Neraida]

Today was another of those horrible days where we feel beaten up by the chandlery community. Living in Southampton we have lots and lots of Chandleries a short car ride away, but its abit like shopping at either Curry's, Comet and Dixons.

So here are my questions it any chandler who can spare some time from counting his profits to read this:-

[rant mode]

1) As, near as dammit, everything over £100 costs the same no matter where you go, who's fault is it? The manufacturer for "forcing" price conformity?... OR chandleries themselves for thinking "why should I charge less than Widow Twankies Chandlery (for example), when they're gonna buy it anyway..?

2) Loyalty.. means nothing to you does it? We spent over £5000 on chandlery last year (I have the receipts!!), over 2 grand in one shop in one go, one 1k spend in one go and several "couple of hundred pound" visits. On the mention of discount you all clam up and mutter about profit margins, "everything being discounted anyway" (LMAO!!) and other things. I dispair, you know who I am, you know you get most of my spare money, if you treat me well, i wont shop around!!!

3) Would you do anything about it if cruisermart came back on the scene? I remember them being over 10% cheaper on most things AND they discounted further depending on your spend.

4)Why oh why do the majority of you insist on employing snotty, arrogant, insolant kids as staff? I expect most of them to ask me "If i want fries with that..." This is not ALWAYS the case, but its a growing trend.

[/rant mode]

Any more questions from other "Victims" gladly received. I may stick an open letter in one of the mags if they'll let me!

Cheers

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[Guest]

Didn\'t you guess

Like Currys / Dixons etc. they are not independent of each other ..... many are actually the same owners but keeping the old names ....

<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ...
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.qqbaltic.com/index.html>http://www.qqbaltic.com/index.html</A> For all those disbelievers ! /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

 

[nct1]

Have you tried asking whether a (let us say) 15% discount is available on a spend of £yea BEFORE laying a finger on the mechandise ?

Are you talking to the owner or a shareholder, or someone who could not give a discount no matter what. (having spots and/or being called Kevin is a giveaway).

Have you tried the mail order firms, they have lower overheads.

Like all things in life, you have to shop around, and if these guys were making obscene profits, we would have sold our houses and set up as chandlery's. Looking at most Chandlery's they are unlikely to be able to get much in the way of volume discounts on most lines, and many of their lines have a sell by date.

Time to don the helmet and take cover, I understand the feeling, it's just that you can usually get a better deal if you know where to look.


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[Neraida]

I have tried shopping around believe me. I have 5 major chandleries within spitting distance and a broadband internet connection. I look anywhere and everywhere. "hardware" is considerably cheaper in the USA, but electrinics are much of a muchness, particularly Raymarine stuff.

Tell you what, you find me a Raymarine ST1000+ Tillerpilot for less than £249.99 and an ST40 windsystem for less than £215....

Anyway, my point really was that I shouldn't have to shop around if i'm a regular good customer.

As for profits. here's an example. A box of surgical gloves.. 100pairs... Shamrock Chandlery £13.00. Local Hardware Shop (Independant) £3.00. What do you think?


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[Joe_Cole]

Sadly, it may be that Cruisermart's demise and their pricing structures were connected.

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[Talbot]

For the large spends I always go to the boat show and get a 20-30% discount. works for me /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
saved nearly £400 at LBS.

Fav companies

Mail Speed
Benden Batteries
Pumpkin

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[nct1]

Just for the heck of it I had a quick look.

Compass do the tiller pilot for £239 plus £5.95 P&P (however if you bought several items, it would be worth asking for the P&P to be waived).

I know nothing about the merits of either system but I saw the Simrad TP10 for £225 in the UK and 265 dollars in the US.

Sorry this may sound like beligerence (spelling) however I would love to know where you can get the surgical gloves for that price.

I guess we would all like to see the John Lewis of the chandlery world, but until that happy day comes I guess it's down to shoe leather and hours on the Web.

Anyway, happy hunting.

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[webcraft]

Stop moaning and start looking around a bit.

Allgadgets is often cheaper by more than 10% for various nav and safety items. West Marine are far cheaper for many things even after VAT and import duty have been paid. Ebay has a lot of good (new) stuff.

And there's loads more. If more people used the Web more chandlers would be forced to be more competitive.

- Nick

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[bigmart]

Re: It is interesting

that one I often find is cheaper than the rest,"Pumpkin", does not appear to have a web presence.

Martin

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[Neraida]

Re: Gloves

Well, Tesco's for one and a little hardware shop in Woolston, Southampton both at £3 a box.

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[JPGruntfuttock]

Duncan's Chandlery are well worth a try, their stuff is often about the same sticker
price, BUT, they have a sliding scale discount, with a card that lasts all season so
the more you spend in the season, the higher the discount becomes.

Still family run, when I last visited, there is always someone in authority readily available and they only seem to employ pleasant knowledgable staff.

One drawback from your point of view, they are in Glasgow, but I am sure they can be contacted.

No connection by the way.


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[Ripper]

My Brother and I own a chandlery and it doesn't make enough profit to support either of us - hence the reason why we work 350 days a year - either at our full time jobs or in the shop. Guess we must be doing something desperately wrong!!!

If you think the yachting industry is big let me give you a clue - the caravan industry is 5 times bigger and it still ain't big!!

Yachting is a small (no, tiny) volume business. Funnily enough Motorbikers and amateur aircraft enthusiasts come to us because we're cheaper. So who's ripping off who??

And the reason why Cruisermart, Sowester, and countless other Mail Order chandleries have gone bust (often taking customers money with them) was because they lost control of their stock

And one more thing - we sell paint brushes, tape etc.. cheaper than B&Q or Homebase and in the last 2 years we've cut the price of every single thing we sell.
We compete on price with the big boys but guess what - even most of our regular cutomers go to them for their big purchases!!!

And we don't employ any surly youth called Kevin either!!

<hr width=100% size=1>Mike

 

[qsiv]

Certainly can - I saved £2500 on electronics...

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[david_e]

As Ripper indicates there are two sides to every story, the size of the boat market sums it all up really. As a punter you have choices as to whether you buy or not and to whom you buy from. In some respects the comparitive price you pay from one shop to another is irrelevant, what is more of an issue is whether you feel you are getting value for money. Went for meal last night with SWMBO and the kids, as one does on birthdays etc - bill - £140. Could have gone to Pizza hut/Mcmuck etc but not appropriate for the occassion. Was it value for money - not really as the cost of the food was probably a fraction of the bill and the wine was 3 times the wholesale price, and when I cough up (always with a smile) I think hhmmm could get three new life jackets for that, or could get such and such for the boat. The point is, I eat every day and a restaraunt meal is eating with experience, bit like a theme park. When we go sailing it is also the experience but at the end of it I have some asset value in the investment and if the cost of sailing bits and bobs is the cost of sailing bits and bobs then that is it. I shop around, haggle etc but often wonder whether it is worth it when my time would be better spent elsewhere, but we all love a bargain!

For paint brushes, cleaning gear etc, I find Woolies and Morrisons cheaper than everywhere, unfortunately they don't do antifoul, tiller pilots or running rigging!

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[Neraida]

Thanks for your reply Mike.

I thing you and your brother have been affected by my rather slap-dask work with a tar brush.

However, what I do not understand is this. You manage to stay afloat by setting your prices the same or less than the "big boys", and I suspect that, because of the nature of the way you run your business, you have regular, loyal, custom. So, how come large "Chains" and "Superstore" chandleries with a high foot fall, low sq ft rental, and greater buying power charge the same (and often MORE) as you?

In the rest of the retail world its the way it "should" be. Bill's Corner Shop sells a can of beans for 30p cos he buys 1000cans a year and his sq ft rental is high. Tesco sell a can of the same beans for 20p because their costs per customer are much lower and they sell 10000000 cans. This is ignoring "loss leaders" and other marketing stratagies.

The world has changed. If you got a decent web designer in, gave him a good idea of ALL of your stock, get the site promoted by Google (small costs believe me) you COULD, if you do it right, come in every morning to 20 or so orders which arrived while the shop is closed. Don't forget however that a crappy web site with broken links and dull mapping is a huge customer turn off.

Anyway, I'm off racing. See ya later!

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[IanPoole2]

Re: John Lewis

You cannot be serious -
I remember when they did n't open Saturday afternoons - even if Oxford Street and also did n't take credit cards. Bit of a b*ggr when you are trying to spend several hundreds of pounds and take the goods away with you.

Also - the own Waitrose - not the cheapest supermarket.

"Never knowingly undersold" can be taken with a pinch of salt.

<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by IanPoole2 on 07/03/2004 08:16 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Joe_Cole]

I am intrigued.
As you obviously feel you know how to run a chandlery business profitably, why don't you set one up and show all the others how it should be done? /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

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[Peppermint]

Re: HMMMM...

I don't have the same experience with chandlers. When I bought my chart plotter from the pantomime chandler that owns various Hamble sites I was given a very thorough run down on what was available, how they performed etc. I wandered of for the afternoon to mull the job over. When I went to buy the young lad remembered that he'd seen an e-mail about a price drop. He made 5 phone calls to check the correct price and one to Garmin to check a technical point I'd raised. That lad saved be 40 quid on the unit and 20 quid on the cartridge.

Being at Shamrock Quay I use the onsite chandler for bit's and pieces, not electronics, they have a discount card scheme that If I'm lucky pays out for a tin of antifouling. They're a chatty bunch but I don't think they're either cheap or dear.

I suspect that the expensive stuff like electronics and engines is priced closely by the manufacturers. Prices can change daily and retailers are on fixed margins and bonus payments if they're successful in shifting units.

It's interesting to note the level of investment in premises by south coast chandlers in the face of web competition. I'd think that might show just how much kit is bought without a great deal of planning.

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[bob_tyler]

Re: John Lewis

"Never knowingly undersold" On several occasions, having found the same product cheaper elsewhere, I have been back to John Lewis who promptly refunded the difference (naturally after checking).

I don't believe that the slogan is used by their Waitrose operation.

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[Talbot]

The other method is to send an Email to a large number of different companies and ask for a quote. I did that last year for a new S1 Autohelm and had 25 replies with a price difference of nearly £1000. (with one very cheap quote from Port Solent Marine Superstore who the refused to honour the quote (they had forgotten to include the Linear drive at @ £900!!!)

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