Never to be beaten Kitchen and Bedroom deals!

Yes, it’s “Sale Time”, again!

One of our associated industries, fitted furniture, yet again manages to offer “never to be repeated” discounts of 60% reductions (and more), on goods that are still manufactured to order.

How do they do that? Discounts of 20%, I can understand. A discount like that, can still leave some margin but 60% - how does that work?

It works because for most of the year leading up to the “sale season”, the headline price is unrealistic but the customer sees (and likes), the opportunity to strike a bargain. Good old fashioned barter. It creates satisfaction for the “cute” consumer, via the “Mexican Hat Dance” leading up to the moment of satisfaction for the salesperson – the close!

So how is this funded? Are such retailers really taking substantial amounts of money from their own bank accounts, to benefit every customer who walks through their door, eagerly awaited by the “ever so humble”, hand writhing, Uriah Heap character, equally eager to offer discount beyond your wildest dreams? Are they true modern day benefactors of the general public?

Of course not and deep down, we all know it! They don’t make a loss. They just make a higher than average profit all year and charge “extras” at every given opportunity;

“Sorry madam, we didn’t know that your electrical system was inadequate, so we need to charge an extra £450”.......” Removing the tiles has meant more plastering than we first thought, so the extra cost is £1500”........”We thought you were going to move the sockets, so we will have to charge £150 per socket extra”.......”We thought that you would have moved the radiator, before we arrived. We now need a plumber and who knows what that will cost!”......

Unfortunate but common-place industry solutions to gaining margin. It’s the cowboy mentality that we would seek to eliminate.

Our advice? Stick to the realistic discounters with first class installers! Try Katherine Cavendish Fitted Interiors Limited (www.katherinecavendish.co.uk), installed by Rubicon Developments Limited.

Peter Saunders
Director