Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: *thomas james on April 22, 2007, 10:59:33 am
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aaa
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Hi Thomas
Ive been thinking along the same lines
having been cleaning for over 24 yrs
and now gone over to wfp the skill is slowly sliping away
now with in a day or so you can train a guy to clean windows
and what with the new pro 10 its only a matter of time before all the larger contract start to employ there own guys to do what was once a skilled job
just a nagging thought i have
Andy ::)
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with the title who will survive i thought it was football for a moment , well i hope westham survive
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i will survive hey hey oh now go, walk out the door just turn around now, cos you cant clean me anymore :D
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you will find that most suppliers are now starting to apply for patents, and desgn rights,
this will soon stop anyone copying there product. even an individual making copys and selling on ebay ect, can be stoped, slowly but surly the net is closing in, companys just cannot afford to keep puting thousands of pounds into new poles,
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hi
lets face it the bigger companys will keep them going because i don't think ocs fit diy systems in their van they take their vans to brodex machines and they fit the system for them, any way i am sure if the main supliers were to make their prices cheaper then we wouldn't go down the diy route. lets face it they don't cost them a fraction of what they try to charge us.
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Speaking from a suppliers point of view I think competition is good for us - if someone really likes and wants one of the systems you build then they will buy it, competition and choice is healthy for the industry.
As for what iveson says about profit margins I'm sure some of the more expensive systems on the market don't cost a fraction of what the companies sell them for but consider the time put into building a professional system, the time involved in negotiating with the client what system they want re poles, tank size, static or mobile etc etc, then you have the aftercare, not to mention the cost of stocking poles, pumps, varistreams, tanks, hose the list goes on and on. If you want to save money then go diy - I have no problem with anyone building their own (apart from the ones which are death-traps). If you want a professional system, safely mounted into your van with a full years warranty then get in touch with a system builder. I do agree though that some systems you see on the market are a rip off.
However I do know that per hour I make more cleaning windows.
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It's the price of brushes that makes me laugh. Just have a look at Tesco, Wilkinsons etc. bung in a couple of jets and hey presto! Presumably they can be bought even cheaper in bulk. Slap on some vat a bit of extra postage and your brush is now nearly twenty times the price. Some manufacturers spout on about research and development costs - I don't think so. R.O units have been around for years already. Same with fishing poles. The systems are hardly complicated. Its not a specialised job to waterproof a van floor. It wouldn't cost much to get an engineer/fabricator to design a cage to surround a tank. Hozelock type fittings are hardly new. Nor is hosepipe. It just dosen't get much more basic than this. The profit margins must be huge for some suppliers.
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I don't entirely agree with the DIY guys copying manufacturers, Look how Jeff Brimble has adapted carbon fishing poles,and Gaz's swivel brushes.
Inovation often comes from the guys who do the job every day, and solve the problems as they occur. The example of brushes was a good one too. Jeff pioneered the lightweight brush to fit on his fishing poles. Now manufacturers are making them lighter too.
The diy guys give out the results of their experiments freely, to the benefit of us all. Dai
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No I'm not knocking the DIY guys what I'm saying is that the big boys are doing very well out of what is basically a very cheap system with very little research or ground breaking discoverys being developed. A brush on the end of a pole..... come on.
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I think that some suppliers are overcharging at the moment, for example their is one supplier that is selling a system that they import from the USA for £5287.50p plus delivery, yet I can buy this same system for £2605.17p including delivery.
Making more than double their outgoing cost for making a telephone call and ordering a system to be sent is a bit on the greedy side.
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dont know who that is but i can tell you that keeping stock is an expensive business, imagine for one moment a supplier has 30 pumps in stock - that alone is quite a lot of money sitting on the shelf, then you have everything else that goes with it.
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Anyone that does not have to finance holding stock and have even the smallest product developed will not have a clue to the real expense involved, until they actually try it themselves!
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How much does it cost for a machine robot to build a car hhmmmm!
what about your house !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
have you payed your wife's / partners hair salon bill lately and they only cut hair
shall we all start building tv's or prehaps the new ps3
a customer can clean there own window for probably no cost but you charge on average £10-12 pmth
one day one day
rgds
stu
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have you payed your wife's / partners hair salon bill lately and they only cut hair
Ruddy 60 quid a time and she get's it done once every three months!!!
It really narks me, but she says that since she's a runner and window cleaner (this is her justification), the sun bleaches the colour out of her hair!!!
I tell her I'd do it for a fiver!
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its not rocket science pumping pure water from tank in your van.
Do you need to be a manufacturer for that ?
I tell you what cutting hair and building a car are a different ball game altogether.
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What about the hours of work in product development? The work done has to be paid for.
A very simple connector say joining a 6mm pipe to a 10mm pipe may seem like a simple thing and it is, but it is only widely available in our industry because suppliers source them and stock them, and can give you them at a reasonable price. When I first started I spent a long time on something so simple to get it right.
Yes you can put together your own system quite a bit cheaper, some people can't, and some would rather spend the time cleaning windows and have it all done for them.
I don't know who the company is either who brings whatever it is in from the states, but they have to make a profit as well. It costs them money to let people know they have the system for sale, not too mention all the usual business overheads. I can't see them selling many at that price, but they probably need to charge that to make it worthwhile. No one has to buy the system, they do if they want to.
Peter
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its not rocket science pumping pure water from tank in your van.
Do you need to be a manufacturer for that ?
I tell you what cutting hair and building a car are a different ball game altogether.
aint that the truth
i was determined to stay off this topic, but i cannot
let look at it
Tank with RO / DI connected to it ( secured in the van )
Pump ( shurflow or Flojet )
some hose
a pole
a brush head ( fitted with jets )
anything i missed, or have i passed the NASA test
its seems only a few makers are "moving the goal posts" i will include ionics in that aswell as Peter F and Gardiner
oinics for the newer stuff they brong out, the Pro 10
Peter F is allways coming up with new idea's
Gardiner seem to be trying to do things with poles
any1 i have forgeotten, please post away
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you do mean "making strides" dont you
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you do mean "making strides" dont you
i wasnt sure of the term i wanted, i toyed with a few to be honest, pushing the boundry a little was another term
ive a bit of a headache, due to me painting the bottom half of my campervan today, even though i had a mask on, the fumes still got to me :(
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with the title who will survive i thought it was football for a moment , well i hope westham survive
Keep on dreaming Marc, and look forward to the championship and going to all the wonderfull grounds of the clubs in it :-\
hope the hammers survive, as long as they lose on the last game of the season ;D
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its not rocket science pumping pure water from tank in your van.
Do you need to be a manufacturer for that ?
I tell you what cutting hair and building a car are a different ball game altogether.
aint that the truth
i was determined to stay off this topic, but i cannot
let look at it
Tank with RO / DI connected to it ( secured in the van )
Pump ( shurflow or Flojet )
some hose
a pole
a brush head ( fitted with jets )
anything i missed, or have i passed the NASA test
its seems only a few makers are "moving the goal posts" i will include ionics in that aswell as Peter F and Gardiner
oinics for the newer stuff they brong out, the Pro 10
Peter F is allways coming up with new idea's
Gardiner seem to be trying to do things with poles
any1 i have forgeotten, please post away
Matt the point I was trying to get across is this. Take the pump for instance how do you know that it is a Sureflo or a Flowjet pump you need, and which particular one because there is quite a few different models of each? Because you have seen them on systems that originally came from water fed pole suppliers.
There must be a demand for systems or all these new suppliers wouldn't be popping up all over the place, but these are the people who can give us new products, as some may come up with something different now and again. Granted people who want to only clean windows will come up with some things new as well like Gaz with the brush, but he has become a supplier as well. Jeff has probably added more than anyone else, and I have been at him a few times to supply systems to others, but for some reason or another he dosn't want to.
Another advantage in buying a ready to go system is you only have one place to phone if anything goes wrong or you need a spare part. And if there is a proper profit margin built into the pricing of a system then this allows you to send out replacement faulty parts before the customer has sent back the faulty part for inspection. This keeps the customer working when he could be sitting at home waiting for his part to be repaired or replaced.
Back to the original question of the thread.
The industry will not be able to sustain the high amount of suppliers we have of water fed pole equipment as prices continue to fall, and the high demand diminishes, and only the ones that are good at what they do will be left.
Peter
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its not rocket science pumping pure water from tank in your van.
Do you need to be a manufacturer for that ?
I tell you what cutting hair and building a car are a different ball game altogether.
aint that the truth
i was determined to stay off this topic, but i cannot
let look at it
Tank with RO / DI connected to it ( secured in the van )
Pump ( shurflow or Flojet )
some hose
a pole
a brush head ( fitted with jets )
anything i missed, or have i passed the NASA test
its seems only a few makers are "moving the goal posts" i will include ionics in that aswell as Peter F and Gardiner
oinics for the newer stuff they brong out, the Pro 10
Peter F is allways coming up with new idea's
Gardiner seem to be trying to do things with poles
any1 i have forgeotten, please post away
Matt the point I was trying to get across is this. Take the pump for instance how do you know that it is a Sureflo or a Flowjet pump you need, and which particular one because there is quite a few different models of each? Because you have seen them on systems that originally came from water fed pole suppliers.
There must be a demand for systems or all these new suppliers wouldn't be popping up all over the place, but these are the people who can give us new products, as some may come up with something different now and again. Granted people who want to only clean windows will come up with some things new as well like Gaz with the brush, but he has become a supplier as well. Jeff has probably added more than anyone else, and I have been at him a few times to supply systems to others, but for some reason or another he dosn't want to.
Another advantage in buying a ready to go system is you only have one place to phone if anything goes wrong or you need a spare part. And if there is a proper profit margin built into the pricing of a system then this allows you to send out replacement faulty parts before the customer has sent back the faulty part for inspection. This keeps the customer working when he could be sitting at home waiting for his part to be repaired or replaced.
Back to the original question of the thread.
The industry will not be able to sustain the high amount of suppliers we have of water fed pole equipment as prices continue to fall, and the high demand diminishes, and only the ones that are good at what they do will be left.
Peter
i get what you mean Peter
to the question on how do we know what pump to get, we ask the guru ( aka Jeff B ) ;) he is the WFP oracle :)
seriously though, and ive built systems for others, its easy enough to build a basic system now, all the parts are available off the shelf
good luck to the people who "try something new" yourself inc, ive seen and spoken to some1 with your autobrush, its a cracking bit of kit
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The problem is a lot of suppliers are not aware of actual cost of production, shipment etc.. There is no one as yet ruthless enough to tackle the manufacturers to bring prices down. There are suppliers who are fixing prices and other suppliers cannot compete because of this. Someone will soon come on the scene who has all this knowledge then you will see other suppliers struggle.
Doug
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alex - I really didn't understand your last post?
Are you saying that holding stock doesn't cost anything?
Surely you like the rest of us have to pay your own suppliers or have I missed something?
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Anyone that does not have to finance holding stock and have even the smallest product developed will not have a clue to the real expense involved, until they actually try it themselves!
JM123, The point of the above sentence was that anyone that does not hold stock, etc, does not have a clue as to the real expense involved. You and I both know that to hold a fairly basic inventory of stock can easily tie up £50,000.
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Going back to the origional question I think the likes of your company Alex, stand a very good chance of surviving. Provided you can offer a good service, quick turnaround, good aftersales service, and a very extensive website it's what customers want. The rest is down to pricing, you pay your money and take your choice I think the majority of users on this site use this forum because we don't have the wealth to go with the big companies or the knowledge to go fully diy.
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Alex, JM123 you could run a company without holding the stock. There are ways and means, the only problem you will have is customer service will not be the same. Hence the advanatage of stocking items.
The biggest problem we as window cleaners have if someone starts to market this at a reasonable price to householders. when the price drops to that level then we should be concerned.
In the world of business I atke my hat off to Bill Gates, he has driven suppliers to the ground and now controls everything. Your proof of licence label and software package cost around £0.20 to manufacture. So you can see from that where the profit is going, there is profit then there is greed.
Doug
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£0.20 to manufacture
but millions to develope!
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The biggest problem we as window cleaners have if someone starts to market this at a reasonable price to householders. when the price drops to that level then we should be concerned.
Doug
thats a good point , and something i have been aware of for sometime ( even though most say i am crazy ) when the big boys have sold all they have, and are not selling anymore, then who will they target, the commercail building owner / home owner