Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: hotsteam on April 18, 2021, 08:26:57 pm
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Hi, I was just about to place an order with Gardiners for nearly £350 with the Vat, and they want to charge £6.95 for FedEx !
I thought it was free delivery over £100 ?
Your thoughts ?
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Hi, I was just about to place an order with Gardiners for nearly £350 with the Vat, and they want to charge £6.95 for FedEx !
I thought it was free delivery over £100 ?
Your thoughts ?
I bought 3 brushes and some o clips the other day....yes FedEx fees are £6-95......the free shipping offer no longer applies mate....
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Its been happening for a while. I feel gardeners is getting worse, half the stuff is not in stock and they have also stopped selling most things now. Its on my favourites at the top of my screen but I find myself going to other suppliers more and more now, they don't even sell pumps any more. The only things I seem to buy are new poles, or pole spares and brushes.
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Funny that, you wouldn't believe there was a global pandemic :o
Seriously, supplies and stocks will be hit, I know the items I post out and receive postage is going up at an alarming rate - so many people are sending out parcels now
Darran
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Gardiners are good, but there expensive, i think they need more competition, the brushes are expensive now, and cleverly they make it so you have to use there products, like that other company, whats it called uh yea i know Apple ;D ;D
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Hi, I was just about to place an order with Gardiners for nearly £350 with the Vat, and they want to charge £6.95 for FedEx !
I thought it was free delivery over £100 ?
Your thoughts ?
What we sometimes forget, more so if we are new to wfp window cleaning, is how much Gardiners have done for window cleaners over the years.
Before Gardiners were selling carbon fibre poles there was really only Facelift and their prices would have meant wfp would have been a very expensive investment and out of my reach price wise. They were also rather heavy. We were battling along with aluminium poles which were available from a number of suppliers. We also had brushes that weren't wfp friendly due to weight.
Despite material costs going up Gardiners have managed to keep prices reasonable while still maintaining a good quality after sales service.
I have benefited from free transport, sometimes even increasing my order to slot into the free delivery window. I don't begrudge them now adding a carriage charge after all these years.
Its been happening for a while. I feel gardeners is getting worse, half the stuff is not in stock and they have also stopped selling most things now. Its on my favourites at the top of my screen but I find myself going to other suppliers more and more now, they don't even sell pumps any more. The only things I seem to buy are new poles, or pole spares and brushes.
Yes, we are also having to source requirements from other suppliers. But that's not a great hardship. I can understand why they have found it necessary to focus on their core products, leaving Grippa and Daqua to supply the dis-continued lines.
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Gardiners are good, but there expensive, i think they need more competition, the brushes are expensive now, and cleverly they make it so you have to use there products, like that other company, whats it called uh yea i know Apple ;D ;D
If you look at Xline brush prices and compare them with Gardiners you will see quite a difference.
https://www.xline-systems.co.uk/water-fed-poles/evo-lite-brushes
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your right Spruce they have been good for industry, doesn't mean they get a free ride though, blimin pandemic every company using it as excuse for bad service, am i the only one who thinks some are using it as excuse
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more competition in suppliers needed, like us window cleaners, i do like gardiners stuff
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Its been happening for a while. I feel gardeners is getting worse, half the stuff is not in stock and they have also stopped selling most things now. Its on my favourites at the top of my screen but I find myself going to other suppliers more and more now, they don't even sell pumps any more. The only things I seem to buy are new poles, or pole spares and brushes.
They are a small family run business... just streamlining their range of products.....
I dont offer gutter clearing or inside window cleaning anymore....again streamlining my business
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Noticed this the other day, was a bit annoyed to be honest, it’s not like gardiners stuff is cheap.
They must be doing very well business wise at the mo, so it would be nice to have free delivery on orders over £100 or whatever it was.
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Gardiners are good, but there expensive, i think they need more competition, the brushes are expensive now, and cleverly they make it so you have to use there products, like that other company, whats it called uh yea i know Apple ;D ;D
I think their reasonably priced overall....no prices stay the same.....everything goes up mate...
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Out of all the courier companies Fed Ex are probably the worst as far as tracking your parcel is concerned. Most of the other companies give you an ETA, Fed Ex tracker only tells you when the parcel has arrived and left their depot. The last two orders I’ve had from Gardiner’s didn’t turn up on the day stated by Fed Ex and they won’t leave it in a designated safe place either. I thought the days of staying in all day to receive a parcel were well and truly over......it seems not with Fed Ex.
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Out of all the courier companies Fed Ex are probably the worst as far as tracking your parcel is concerned. Most of the other companies give you an ETA, Fed Ex tracker only tells you when the parcel has arrived and left their depot. The last two orders I’ve had from Gardiner’s didn’t turn up on the day stated by Fed Ex and they won’t leave it in a designated safe place either. I thought the days of staying in all day to receive a parcel were well and truly over......it seems not with Fed Ex.
That’s strange I find fed ex very good , they leave all deliveries in a pre arranged place txt before delivery giving a two hour time slot then txt once delivered .
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Out of all the courier companies Fed Ex are probably the worst as far as tracking your parcel is concerned. Most of the other companies give you an ETA, Fed Ex tracker only tells you when the parcel has arrived and left their depot. The last two orders I’ve had from Gardiner’s didn’t turn up on the day stated by Fed Ex and they won’t leave it in a designated safe place either. I thought the days of staying in all day to receive a parcel were well and truly over......it seems not with Fed Ex.
That’s strange I find fed ex very good , they leave all deliveries in a pre arranged place txt before delivery giving a two hour time slot then txt once delivered .
i was disapointed in the deliver charge also
but saying that i can put please leave in porchway on the notes with fed ex
i caught the fed ex delivery driver the other day and i asked him if iam not in can you throw it over the metal side gate instead and he did it the last delivery. so fed ex is good for me
i dont get the next day delivery of gardiners now it was 2 days last time and yes i paid deliver charge every other company deliveries have been next day promp
amazon same day sometimes to the corner shop ordered 8am delivered 5pm
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What we sometimes forget, more so if we are new to wfp window cleaning, is how much Gardiners have done for window cleaners over the years.
Before Gardiners were selling carbon fibre poles there was really only Facelift and their prices would have meant wfp would have been a very expensive investment and out of my reach price wise.
Sorry what?
Ionics were supplying carbon fibre poles long before gardiners and facelift.
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I could be wrong but if you order Gardiner products ( brushes, poles etc. ) You don’t pay delivery 8)
T
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I should of said from Grippatank ::)roll
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It did sting the other day when 2 brushes came in at over £100 with vat and delivery added! But on balance I will still use them as we know the poles and brushes are still the best . I wish they would use dpd though .
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Out of all the courier companies Fed Ex are probably the worst as far as tracking your parcel is concerned. Most of the other companies give you an ETA, Fed Ex tracker only tells you when the parcel has arrived and left their depot. The last two orders I’ve had from Gardiner’s didn’t turn up on the day stated by Fed Ex and they won’t leave it in a designated safe place either. I thought the days of staying in all day to receive a parcel were well and truly over......it seems not with Fed Ex.
Our FedEx delivery man delivers when he feels like it. Not just orders from Gardiners. I've complained to FedEx about it but it falls on deaf ears. I'm the customer and I've paid FedEx to deliver my parcel on time but the last 3 deliveries have taken up to a week.
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your right Spruce they have been good for industry, doesn't mean they get a free ride though, blimin pandemic every company using it as excuse for bad service, am i the only one who thinks some are using it as excuse
Well, one of my hobbies is astrophotography. You cant get a guided telescope of any sort for love nor money these day.
I'll give you one guess why.
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And I had 3 sheets of 8' x 4' PVC delivered last week, for a DIY project Im doing at home. Delivery charge - £30.00.
Shut up you old woman bleating at £6.95 delivery charge.
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And I had 3 sheets of 8' x 4' PVC delivered last week, for a DIY project Im doing at home. Delivery charge - £30.00.
Shut up you old woman bleating at £6.95 delivery charge.
I can beat that, I had 2 bulk bags of chippings delivered the other week. 80 friggin quid delivery!
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Maybe I got lazy. The delivery charge at the £60 point got me getting nearly all my stuff from Gardiner and a little from Soap National. Now I get claber reels, spares, hose, resin, clips, connectors from Soap.
My RO filters and spares I shop around for so only poles and rarely a brush - from Gardiners. But I guess that has been their plan.
Imagine you don't replace an employee and you need less storage space then you might save say 30k a year
That's a lot of turnover not needed on small and cheap items.
Also let's pluck one hundred orders a day at £5 free delivery on average. That's £500 a day. Let's say that ten go elsewhere in a huff at an average profit of £25 per order. So you lose £250, gain 90 x £6.75 - gain over £600.
And you are processing 10% orders less.
I can see why it has been done.
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Hi, I was just about to place an order with Gardiners for nearly £350 with the Vat, and they want to charge £6.95 for FedEx !
I thought it was free delivery over £100 ?
Your thoughts ?
It's tax deductible. Plus the longer Alex is in business the longer we're in business. He comes up with the best ideas to make our working life easier IMO.
Good luck to him 👍
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"Free delivery"? No such thing. Someone pays for it.
Much more honest to put the charge in the open.
Vin
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Its been happening for a while. I feel gardeners is getting worse, half the stuff is not in stock and they have also stopped selling most things now. Its on my favourites at the top of my screen but I find myself going to other suppliers more and more now, they don't even sell pumps any more. The only things I seem to buy are new poles, or pole spares and brushes.
They are a small family run business... just streamlining their range of products.....
I dont offer gutter clearing or inside window cleaning anymore....again streamlining my business
I take it you have never looked at company house then Daz? they are not a small company, they ARE getting smaller with their product line however their turnover certainly isn't that of a small company
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Its been happening for a while. I feel gardeners is getting worse, half the stuff is not in stock and they have also stopped selling most things now. Its on my favourites at the top of my screen but I find myself going to other suppliers more and more now, they don't even sell pumps any more. The only things I seem to buy are new poles, or pole spares and brushes.
They are a small family run business... just streamlining their range of products.....
I dont offer gutter clearing or inside window cleaning anymore....again streamlining my business
I don't clean insides or guttters either. I prefer to stick with outside windows only.
I only use gardiners every few years once i need a pole replacing so i am not upto date with how they are now.
They have without doubt been of huge benefit to the window cleaning industry - but like any business, they won't survive on past glory alone.
I have always liked their poles though i don't like the push fit connectors at the brush. I have wrapped tap around the hose now to atop it running out of the endss of the pole.
Ive been wfp for 14 years and almost never needed to swap brushes. The only time i did was when i cleaned the exterior of a house with the pole.
If i can, i will always be a loyal customer of gardiners. Alex has helped a lot over the phone back when i started.
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Hi, I was just about to place an order with Gardiners for nearly £350 with the Vat, and they want to charge £6.95 for FedEx !
I thought it was free delivery over £100 ?
Your thoughts ?
r
I'm surprised Alex hasn't replied to your post regarding delivery,and also why there product range is getting smaller,maybe he busy promoting his business elsewhere as he now has us all as. Loyal customers
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your right Spruce they have been good for industry, doesn't mean they get a free ride though, blimin pandemic every company using it as excuse for bad service, am i the only one who thinks some are using it as excuse
My wife works in purchasing. The problem is that there is a worldwide shortage of raw materials. China has been the worlds 'breadbasket' for many years now. Costs to get manufactured goods out of China have tripled. The recent floods in China have wiped out much industry on the river flood plains.
India is also another one of our suppliers. With 200,000 deaths a day and the nation generally in poor health due to Covid, the pool of skilled workers needed isn't there any more. A lot of our medicines and chemicals come from India.
The other issue smaller companies are facing is workspace. Now you can't have a lot of people working together in a confined space due to distancing rules. This is especially true in my wife's office environment. The staff have been moved around and separated and the process to keep employees safe isn't always conducive with better efficiency.
In times like these many companies have had to furlough staff. To remain trading fewer people have more work to do. I don't believe that the premises Alex has is very big. He did once say how many staff members, both part and full time, he employed. I was surprised at the number tbh.
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your right Spruce they have been good for industry, doesn't mean they get a free ride though, blimin pandemic every company using it as excuse for bad service, am i the only one who thinks some are using it as excuse
My wife works in purchasing. The problem is that there is a worldwide shortage of raw materials. China has been the worlds 'breadbasket' for many years now. Costs to get manufactured goods out of China have tripled. The recent floods in China have wiped out much industry on the river flood plains.
India is also another one of our suppliers. With 200,000 deaths a day and the nation generally in poor health due to Covid, the pool of skilled workers needed isn't there any more. A lot of our medicines and chemicals come from India.
Err....
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I just went to checkout £113 worth of clamps and levers (medium jiffy bag would do it).
£20 delivery.
I think I'll get them from Daqua.
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Nice post spruce
I see no no problem streamlining and concentrating on what gardeners do best and that’s poles and brushes why waste warehouse space,time and resources on peripheral items that many others sell
Darran
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your right Spruce they have been good for industry, doesn't mean they get a free ride though, blimin pandemic every company using it as excuse for bad service, am i the only one who thinks some are using it as excuse
My wife works in purchasing. The problem is that there is a worldwide shortage of raw materials. China has been the worlds 'breadbasket' for many years now. Costs to get manufactured goods out of China have tripled. The recent floods in China have wiped out much industry on the river flood plains.
India is also another one of our suppliers. With 200,000 deaths a day and the nation generally in poor health due to Covid, the pool of skilled workers needed isn't there any more. A lot of our medicines and chemicals come from India.
Err....
My mistake. Thanks. Nearly 200,000 deaths and 15.6 million affected.
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I don't mind paying for delivery. We had it free for so long, that you can't really complain.
And £6.99 is not terrible.
What is terrible, is Deliveroo want £2.99 delivery (plus 50p service charge) for a pizza and that's just round the f***ing corner!
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I just went to checkout £113 worth of clamps and levers (medium jiffy bag would do it).
£20 delivery.
I think I'll get them from Daqua.
Is that because you live on North Uist? Rockall?
Three ferries, a helicopter and a Landrover tend to put the price up. ;D
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I don't think anyone could deny Gardiners have been brilliant on customer service over the years, arguably the best in our trade, but equally, if you start charging for delivery when it was free over a certain amount, will no longer talk to your customers directly without having to effectivly email for an appointment, and drastically reduce your range then things clearly are no where near as good as they were.
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I don't think anyone could deny Gardiners have been brilliant on customer service over the years, arguably the best in our trade, but equally, if you start charging for delivery when it was free over a certain amount, will no longer talk to your customers directly without having to effectivly email for an appointment, and drastically reduce your range then things clearly are no where near as good as they were.
For me:
I think Gardiners provide excellent customer service and great products. The free delivery is nice but £6.99 is still cheaper than me going to get it. I know sometimes, the delivery charge is disproportionate to the item that i've purchased but that's life!
I haven't tried the email thing, I used to call them and leave a message for them to call me back. They have always called me back within a reasonable time AND with an answer to my query. My pet hate is being stuck in a f*cing 'queue' being told my call is important to them! For me, I'm happy with the 'call me back thing'.
I've noticed that Gardiners have reduced their range, but it was stuff you can buy elsewhere anyway. The irony is, we all bought it from Gardiners because their service is so good.
For me the important thing is Gardiners make very good poles, brushes and accessories. This is what they do.
I am hoping that the money they can save with these 'changes to the business' will go into more R&D for the introduction of new poles, new brushes and accessories that will continue to help make me money.
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I don't think anyone could deny Gardiners have been brilliant on customer service over the years, arguably the best in our trade, but equally, if you start charging for delivery when it was free over a certain amount, will no longer talk to your customers directly without having to effectivly email for an appointment, and drastically reduce your range then things clearly are no where near as good as they were.
I don't agree - you can't really expect them to stay the same - buisness needs to move forward - it's like saying rolls royces are not very good because they used to have 6 blokes build them by hand and now they roll out of a factory production line.....
The world has changed drastically over 12 months
Darran
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Some of you need a check up from the neck up....moaning over £7!😄
Imagine if we had to physically drive to a shop to buy our equipment?that would be inconvenient these days....👍
Hope you guys are enjoying the dry weather!🌞
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"The world has changed drastically over 12 months"
No more so in Cornwall than any other part of the UK where most of the other suppliers i buy from still give free delivery over a certain amount, still stock the same amount gear and answer the phone when i ring them, not get back to me when its convenient for them and quite probably inconvenient for me. I still rate Gardiners highly and will no doubt continue to buy from them but nevertheless, their customer service isnt as good as it used to be for these reasons. Back in 2004 when wfp was really taking off, Ionics ruled the roost and along came Gardiners and with a strategy of Stocking quality goods at reasonable prices and offering what i would consider to be the best customer service i have encountered in our industry and imo blew Ionics out of the water. The strategy seems to be changing which is a shame, it worked. Still a great company though.
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I’ve just recently started using gardiners and from my experience they reply to any queries or anything rapidly and very willing to help.
They’re poles are the best without a doubt, cost wise they’re slightly dearer but the quality reflects that. Brushes again IMO are the best not sure about the lifespan stated as mine have well surpassed that
6.99 for delivery i assume is based on a pole size package as that being their forte.
I wouldn’t ever buy hose clips or similar from a window cleaning company as they charge the earth
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It's not the delivery charge that bugs me about Gardiner's it's their couriers Fed Ex.
I was expecting a pole delivery today before 6 pm.
No sign of it and the tracking is now saying before end of the day 😉
Wife has been in all day so have not missed them.
I have had problems with them before and have had to drive to the back of beyond to pick up deliveries from their depot.
I have had a good few deliveries from DPD over the last year and they have been spot on including a delivery window of an hour or so.
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It's not the delivery charge that bugs me about Gardiner's it's their couriers Fed Ex.
I believe Gardiners use FedEx as they are the only ones that will deliver the poles due to the length!
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It's not the delivery charge that bugs me about Gardiner's it's their couriers Fed Ex.
I was expecting a pole delivery today before 6 pm.
No sign of it and the tracking is now saying before end of the day 😉
Wife has been in all day so have not missed them.
I have had problems with them before and have had to drive to the back of beyond to pick up deliveries from their depot.
I have had a good few deliveries from DPD over the last year and they have been spot on including a delivery window of an hour or so.
DPD are fantastic. Download the app and you can virtually follow your package right to your door in real time.
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Ive said my piece on this earlier and I see a fair few agree with the way gardeners used to run. What gets me is we all know Alex comes on here, wouldn't it be nice if he replied to it and explained the reasons behind the charge?
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Being devils advocate - do you explain your charges to customers.?
Postage is never free - stop to consider that the brush you want to buy might be £5 dearer than it currently is if there was 'free' postage - buy 2 or more brushes and your better off..
Darran
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Ive said my piece on this earlier and I see a fair few agree with the way gardeners used to run. What gets me is we all know Alex comes on here, wouldn't it be nice if he replied to it and explained the reasons behind the charge?
Hi Ste M
I have purposefully not commented as I was not asked for my comment by the original poster ;)
The original poster asked for 'your thoughts' not 'Gardiner Pole Systems thoughts' :)
I was happy to let those that wanted to complain, complain - fair enough. Not my job to tell my customers to stop complaining.
I was also interested in the various comments where customers have discussed the business reasons behind this decision - some great insights have been shown.
I have very good and clear reasons both financial and psychological for this 'price rise' - I can share this with you all if specifically wanted. However I would only do so if specifically asked and it would not be an attempt to stop our customers complaining about it.
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I've never had a problem with FedEx....every delivery from Gardiners have been spot on in all the years I've bought stuff off them...
In fact I ordered some new gym gear from under armour the other day but autofill on my phone put the wrong postcode....fedex phoned me on day of delivery to query it before they sent their drivers out at 7am....I've always found their staff friendly and professional...great delivery company IMO...
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Ive said my piece on this earlier and I see a fair few agree with the way gardeners used to run. What gets me is we all know Alex comes on here, wouldn't it be nice if he replied to it and explained the reasons behind the charge?
Hi Ste M
I have purposefully not commented as I was not asked for my comment by the original poster ;)
The original poster asked for 'your thoughts' not 'Gardiner Pole Systems thoughts' :)
I was happy to let those that wanted to complain, complain - fair enough. Not my job to tell my customers to stop complaining.
I was also interested in the various comments where customers have discussed the business reasons behind this decision - some great insights have been shown.
I have very good and clear reasons both financial and psychological for this prices rise - I can share this with you all if specifically wanted. However I would only do so if specifically asked and it would not be an attempt to stop customer complaining about it.
I would appreciate hearing your reasons, Alex.
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I would appreciate hearing your reasons, Alex.
First of all I want to say that I think we are very fortunate to be in an industry where we have, for the main part, been able to continue working and earning a living despite the Covid Pandemic restrictions. I am grateful that I was not in the hospitality or travel sector at this time.
My explanation below is in no way trying to complain or moan about the cost or challenges of doing business – I am very fortunate to have a robust business that has been steadily growing despite the world situation around us. Whilst we are still a small family business we do employ nearly 40 staff and having a healthy business does mean that this responsibility is not more burdensome than it needs to be.
Removal of Free Postage on orders over £60 – yes this is a price rise – pure and simple.
We have not always provided free postage, but introduced it as a sales promotion many years ago in order to ‘encourage’ customers to buy more goods from us to increase order size and spend more money with us – and this has always worked very well to gently push up the size of orders from our customers. Despite this, nearly 40% of our customer orders have paid for postage as they were under the free limit – such orders have not been affected.
Why remove this now? There are several reasons that have coalesced into this change.
1. The price of doing business in the Covid and Post Brexit economy. The rise in prices have been relentless the last 15 months or so. All of our raw materials have increased in price dramatically – sometimes up to 3 price rises in one calendar year. The cost of moving/storing goods has been ridiculous. The cost of shipping a 20ft container has grown from about £1500 (just freight cost, not import and port handling) to about £5000 per container. Even the humble cardboard box has risen in price dramatically and we have faced serious national shortages of packaging materials leading to price spikes. Due to the continued growth within our industry sector, we have had to manage such growth during very challenging times – this has all been costly as every Covid precaution or post-Brexit ‘work around’ has cost us time and money and at a time when many of our staff could still not come into work.
2. We have started to move into a time period where generally consumers are interested in cutting down waste and only purchasing what they need. With this in mind, some time ago we started charging a small amount for hose packs and connectors on our poles so that these would only be bought when wanted – this was also a price rise which helped our bottom line, but it did have the effect of reducing the purchasing of a component that may not have actually been needed. It also helped reduce the work load fractionally at a time when we were busier than ideal. There is an ethical issue with using promotions that encourage consumers to purchase more goods than they need and the removal of this ‘free shipping’ promotion means there is no pressure to buy just an ‘extra widget’ to hit an order value.
3. We have a very dynamic and growing customer base that has considerably increased in order volume in the last twelve months– as a business this is always encouraging. However, the rate of customer order increase has been so dramatic that we had to look at ways of slowing such growth down. We have thought about closing our books to new customers temporarily but this would bring it’s own logistical problems. For the wholesale side in March 2020 we put a freeze in place around the world where we would not appoint any new Distributors either in the UK or Internationally – this freeze will remain in place for the rest of 2021 and probably into 2022. On the retail side we looked at many ways of trying to discourage new customers and reduce the order volume from existing customers – just as in a window cleaning business there is a limit to how many windows can be cleaned with finite resources and in 2020 we reached and exceeded such limits. We aim to ‘work to live, not live to work’. One way of reducing customer orders is to reduce the range of goods supplied and we have been working on this for about 3 years now. However more was needed as we continued to grow so we chose to make the very noticeable method of rising prices by doing away with free shipping. We could have gently increased product prices that would easily have covered this and would probably have not even been noticed, but instead we wanted this very small price rise to be fully noticed, thought about and to have a larger psychological effect than its actual cost is.
Put bluntly we wanted to ‘lose’ some of our customers and their orders and for those who object to this small price rise strongly enough this will hopefully have such an effect and they will shop elsewhere – fortunately, there is plenty of choice in the market today and many other pole suppliers who can be bought from.
Can I take this opportunity to thank all our customers who have been very understanding during this difficult time – we appreciate their support very much and we will continue to do the best we can to keep supplying our customers with the best product possible in the coming months ahead.
I hope that this has helped clarify why such a decision was made 😊
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Thank you for the comprehensive and detailed reply, Alex.
May I ask something based on your response?
You wrote in section 3
"3. We have a very dynamic and growing customer base that has considerably increased in order volume in the last twelve months– as a business this is always encouraging. However, the rate of customer order increase has been so dramatic that we had to look at ways of slowing such growth down."
Why do you think there has been such an increase these last twelve months? What part has Covid played to foment this increase?
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Thank you for the comprehensive and detailed reply, Alex.
May I ask something based on your response?
You wrote in section 3
"3. We have a very dynamic and growing customer base that has considerably increased in order volume in the last twelve months– as a business this is always encouraging. However, the rate of customer order increase has been so dramatic that we had to look at ways of slowing such growth down."
Why do you think there has been such an increase these last twelve months? What part has Covid played to foment this increase?
Hi AuRavelling79
I think for our business, the rate of new customers is not particularly affected by Covid itself. We were experiencing a similar growth rate in new customers during 2019 purely due to our business and products offered within the market. The last couple of years we have averaged about 50 new customers per week and this has continued despite Covid.
What Covid has done is made it more challenging to manage such sustained growth.
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Hi Alex, I just wanted to say thanks very much for your comments.
Some very interesting thoughts. I very much liked the thought of - We aim to ‘work to live, not live to work’.
A pretty good ethos to live by.
Thanks once again.
P.S, I’ll still be using your products.
:)
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I would appreciate hearing your reasons, Alex.
First of all I want to say that I think we are very fortunate to be in an industry where we have, for the main part, been able to continue working and earning a living despite the Covid Pandemic restrictions. I am grateful that I was not in the hospitality or travel sector at this time.
My explanation below is in no way trying to complain or moan about the cost or challenges of doing business – I am very fortunate to have a robust business that has been steadily growing despite the world situation around us. Whilst we are still a small family business we do employ nearly 40 staff and having a healthy business does mean that this responsibility is not more burdensome than it needs to be.
Removal of Free Postage on orders over £60 – yes this is a price rise – pure and simple.
We have not always provided free postage, but introduced it as a sales promotion many years ago in order to ‘encourage’ customers to buy more goods from us to increase order size and spend more money with us – and this has always worked very well to gently push up the size of orders from our customers. Despite this, nearly 40% of our customer orders have paid for postage as they were under the free limit – such orders have not been affected.
Why remove this now? There are several reasons that have coalesced into this change.
1. The price of doing business in the Covid and Post Brexit economy. The rise in prices have been relentless the last 15 months or so. All of our raw materials have increased in price dramatically – sometimes up to 3 price rises in one calendar year. The cost of moving/storing goods has been ridiculous. The cost of shipping a 20ft container has grown from about £1500 (just freight cost, not import and port handling) to about £5000 per container. Even the humble cardboard box has risen in price dramatically and we have faced serious national shortages of packaging materials leading to price spikes. Due to the continued growth within our industry sector, we have had to manage such growth during very challenging times – this has all been costly as every Covid precaution or post-Brexit ‘work around’ has cost us time and money and at a time when many of our staff could still not come into work.
2. We have started to move into a time period where generally consumers are interested in cutting down waste and only purchasing what they need. With this in mind, some time ago we started charging a small amount for hose packs and connectors on our poles so that these would only be bought when wanted – this was also a price rise which helped our bottom line, but it did have the effect of reducing the purchasing of a component that may not have actually been needed. It also helped reduce the work load fractionally at a time when we were busier than ideal. There is an ethical issue with using promotions that encourage consumers to purchase more goods than they need and the removal of this ‘free shipping’ promotion means there is no pressure to buy just an ‘extra widget’ to hit an order value.
3. We have a very dynamic and growing customer base that has considerably increased in order volume in the last twelve months– as a business this is always encouraging. However, the rate of customer order increase has been so dramatic that we had to look at ways of slowing such growth down. We have thought about closing our books to new customers temporarily but this would bring it’s own logistical problems. For the wholesale side in March 2020 we put a freeze in place around the world where we would not appoint any new Distributors either in the UK or Internationally – this freeze will remain in place for the rest of 2021 and probably into 2022. On the retail side we looked at many ways of trying to discourage new customers and reduce the order volume from existing customers – just as in a window cleaning business there is a limit to how many windows can be cleaned with finite resources and in 2020 we reached and exceeded such limits. We aim to ‘work to live, not live to work’. One way of reducing customer orders is to reduce the range of goods supplied and we have been working on this for about 3 years now. However more was needed as we continued to grow so we chose to make the very noticeable method of rising prices by doing away with free shipping. We could have gently increased product prices that would easily have covered this and would probably have not even been noticed, but instead we wanted this very small price rise to be fully noticed, thought about and to have a larger psychological effect than its actual cost is.
Put bluntly we wanted to ‘lose’ some of our customers and their orders and for those who object to this small price rise strongly enough this will hopefully have such an effect and they will shop elsewhere – fortunately, there is plenty of choice in the market today and many other pole suppliers who can be bought from.
Can I take this opportunity to thank all our customers who have been very understanding during this difficult time – we appreciate their support very much and we will continue to do the best we can to keep supplying our customers with the best product possible in the coming months ahead.
I hope that this has helped clarify why such a decision was made 😊
well done alex gardiner on your on your success and i wish you success in the future keep moving forward
i have a question for you
do you think there is anyway when a customer buys from you an option for who the delivery company handles the shipment.
say when i buy something i can tick boxes choice of delivery company for TNT . FED EX .YODEL UKMAIL . etc and the delivery charge next to it .
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Put bluntly we wanted to ‘lose’ some of our customers and their orders and for those who object to this small price rise strongly enough this will hopefully have such an effect and they will shop elsewhere – fortunately, there is plenty of choice in the market today and many other pole suppliers who can be bought from.
Ha ha, love it! Thats what all the moaners keep suggesting they should do with their own customer base when they're busy busy busy.
Shoes on the other foot now...
;D ;D ;D
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Getting rid of excess pain in the arse customers, we'll have to re-phrase it, call it 'Doing an Alex'.
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Alex should double his prices to put off our competition.
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Alex do you have any plans to use other couriers rather than FedEx? Are you aware that when you get a tracking number from FedEx the information you get as far as tracking goes, is at best, very basic. They tell you when they have the item, when it leaves their depot and the delivery day, yes delivery day, no time am/pm time slot, just a delivery day up to 6 PM. Unfortunately the last two orders I’ve had haven’t turned up on the delivery day but FedEx cover themselves in the small print by saying this is only an estimate!!! It is abysmal given today’s tracking technology that this is the case with FedEx and it’s about time they dragged themselves into the 21st century and implemented an up to date tracking service.
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i have a question for you
do you think there is anyway when a customer buys from you an option for who the delivery company handles the shipment.
say when i buy something i can tick boxes choice of delivery company for TNT . FED EX .YODEL UKMAIL . etc and the delivery charge next to it .
Hi mjm (and KS Cleaning)
The whole courier choice question is another issue entirely :)
I have commented on this previously on various threads so apologies if this sounds familiar. Due to the high volume and percentage of pole boxes that we send out our freight class is classed as 'ugly freight' - due to their length most of our parcels do not fit on the conveyor belt sorting systems of all modern courier companies. Therefore, unless you send out less than 5% ‘ugly freight’ you cannot get a contract with a courier company to collect your goods. As we send out about 50% ugly freight each day we are restricted to a choice of just two companies who will do business with us and that choice is:
1. FedEx or
2. Parcel Force
Looking at Parcel Force – they do have better Apps and tracking notifications; however the downside is that they do not offer a next day service (which we always use) the fastest is 48 hours, their service is more expensive and their insurance offering is very poor and not really suitable for high value items. Despite knowing this we did trial them about 3 years ago as we desperately wanted to be able to offer our customers better order tacking and delivery options. However, in a two-week trial Parcelforce managed to lose over 25% of our pole parcels and it took weeks to sort out. Whilst they had assured us they could cope with our type of freight it would appear that once in the system the oversized nature of the parcels caused issues and led to chaos for us and the few hundred customers we trialled this on. The decision was to not switch to Parcelforce ;D
So we have just FedEx left as an option – we are aware of the limitations of FedEx and these limitations also spread to our back office working with them. One member of our Customer Service Team spends an average of 4 hours every day purely in liaising and communicating with FedEx – so we are well aware of their network shortcomings.
However in their favour they are still happy to collect and deliver as many of our ‘ugly freight’ parcels as we can send them, they even have a lorry collection arranged daily for us and the driver is extremely helpful and patient. They also successfully transit about 98% of these parcels through their network first time, with no issues. Although frustrating when their communication lets them down in reality this is only a small percentage of the thousands of parcels they handle for us each month.
In contrast many years ago, before FedEx bought out TNT, we decided to switch away from FedEx to TNT as they were promising better service – after a year of even worse service we were relieved to get back to FedEx who, although not perfect, were a class above TNT at the time.
We do regularly reach out to all the other major courier services though to see if their policies/contracts have changed – at this current point FedEx are still the best we have available to us. We also regularly communicate with FedEx giving them feedback about the need for better tracking and delivery options – I think the takeover of TNT within the UK stretched their resources to the limit and as such any other IT & infrastructure investments are on a back-burner. In the US FedEx have far superior and modern delivery interactions and customer options.
For smaller items we send out there is always the option of switching to a Royal Mail service – for this to be arranged the order will need to be set up over the phone – if you ever require this then please drop us an email on sales@gardinerpolesystems.co.uk requesting a callback to place an order. The Customer Service Team can then set the order up for you and switch from a FedEx standard option to Royal Mail, Signed For option.
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i have a question for you
do you think there is anyway when a customer buys from you an option for who the delivery company handles the shipment.
say when i buy something i can tick boxes choice of delivery company for TNT . FED EX .YODEL UKMAIL . etc and the delivery charge next to it .
Hi mjm (and KS Cleaning)
The whole courier choice question is another issue entirely :)
I have commented on this previously on various threads so apologies if this sounds familiar. Due to the high volume and percentage of pole boxes that we send out our freight class is classed as 'ugly freight' - due to their length most of our parcels do not fit on the conveyor belt sorting systems of all modern courier companies. Therefore, unless you send out less than 5% ‘ugly freight’ you cannot get a contract with a courier company to collect your goods. As we send out about 50% ugly freight each day we are restricted to a choice of just two companies who will do business with us and that choice is:
1. FedEx or
2. Parcel Force
Looking at Parcel Force – they do have better Apps and tracking notifications; however the downside is that they do not offer a next day service (which we always use) the fastest is 48 hours, their service is more expensive and their insurance offering is very poor and not really suitable for high value items. Despite knowing this we did trial them about 3 years ago as we desperately wanted to be able to offer our customers better order tacking and delivery options. However, in a two-week trial Parcelforce managed to lose over 25% of our pole parcels and it took weeks to sort out. Whilst they had assured us they could cope with our type of freight it would appear that once in the system the oversized nature of the parcels caused issues and led to chaos for us and the few hundred customers we trialled this on. The decision was to not switch to Parcelforce ;D
So we have just FedEx left as an option – we are aware of the limitations of FedEx and these limitations also spread to our back office working with them. One member of our Customer Service Team spends an average of 4 hours every day purely in liaising and communicating with FedEx – so we are well aware of their network shortcomings.
However in their favour they are still happy to collect and deliver as many of our ‘ugly freight’ parcels as we can send them, they even have a lorry collection arranged daily for us and the driver is extremely helpful and patient. They also successfully transit about 98% of these parcels through their network first time, with no issues. Although frustrating when their communication lets them down in reality this is only a small percentage of the thousands of parcels they handle for us each month.
In contrast many years ago, before FedEx bought out TNT, we decided to switch away from FedEx to TNT as they were promising better service – after a year of even worse service we were relieved to get back to FedEx who, although not perfect, were a class above TNT at the time.
We do regularly reach out to all the other major courier services though to see if their policies/contracts have changed – at this current point FedEx are still the best we have available to us. We also regularly communicate with FedEx giving them feedback about the need for better tracking and delivery options – I think the takeover of TNT within the UK stretched their resources to the limit and as such any other IT & infrastructure investments are on a back-burner. In the US FedEx have far superior and modern delivery interactions and customer options.
For smaller items we send out there is always the option of switching to a Royal Mail service – for this to be arranged the order will need to be set up over the phone – if you ever require this then please drop us an email on sales@gardinerpolesystems.co.uk requesting a callback to place an order. The Customer Service Team can then set the order up for you and switch from a FedEx standard option to Royal Mail, Signed For option.
ok thanks i have no issues with fedex but parcelforce wooooof i know what you mean by TNT i pay other suppliers next day delivery i get a text from TNT saying the date of delivery and its 2 days late i complain to them there answer is we kept you informed what day would you like the delivery again as no one was in
terrible company i dont have time
anyway i got my answer cheers
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If you’re still about Alex, my new extreme 22 I choose the your neck valve and paid delivery. After a couple of days I’m going back to the univalve. I struggled to remove the top section and when I did it appeared to be thicker than the rest, is this to stop the bung being fitted? Tony
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If you’re still about Alex, my new extreme 22 I choose the your neck valve and paid delivery. After a couple of days I’m going back to the univalve. I struggled to remove the top section and when I did it appeared to be thicker than the rest, is this to stop the bung being fitted? Tony
Hi tlwcs
Probably easier to answer this 'off thread' - feel free to drop me an email :)
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I agree that you need to streamline your offerings, particularly regarding brush choice. I feel you've lost your way a little in this area and are possibly guilty of trying to satisfy a minority of end users not experienced enough to provide the quality of feedback required to meet the requirements of the majority.
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Nice one Alex.
I'm having a 'Cull' too; time wasters, pain in the bum custys, custys where there's not a lot of profit!
Similar to yourself but on a different scale! ;D
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It's not the delivery charge that bugs me about Gardiner's it's their couriers Fed Ex.
I was expecting a pole delivery today before 6 pm.
No sign of it and the tracking is now saying before end of the day 😉
Wife has been in all day so have not missed them.
I have had problems with them before and have had to drive to the back of beyond to pick up deliveries from their depot.
I have had a good few deliveries from DPD over the last year and they have been spot on including a delivery window of an hour or so.
DPD are fantastic. Download the app and you can virtually follow your package right to your door in real time.
Have to agree. DPD are the best out there. FedEx are pants.
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If you’re still about Alex, my new extreme 22 I choose the your neck valve and paid delivery. After a couple of days I’m going back to the univalve. I struggled to remove the top section and when I did it appeared to be thicker than the rest, is this to stop the bung being fitted? Tony
I think you're one of the customers he probably wants rid of 😂