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NBwcs

  • Posts: 997
Re: Undercutting?
« Reply #40 on: January 19, 2012, 06:30:17 pm »
At no time have i or to my knowledge any other local windy got together to "fix conditions" as you put it, its an individual decision based on common sense, which a great many windys see the logic in, no way could it be costrued as running a cartel. You sell the same product as every other wc, ie you clean,its not rocket science hence as an indusry we're all very vulnerable to people coming in and driving prices down. Its already happened round here, eight years ago when i started, commercial was the "holy Grail" , it paid very well and everyone wanted a piece of the action. Now i would go as far to say that residential is more lucrative  (locally speaking)as commercial has been unindated with cheap prices. We're now seeing a change in the focus of undercutting, residential being the target and its inevitable that it'll go the same way. You say its a strange way to run a business, what i find strange is why anyone with business sense would want to saddle themselves with customers whose clear motivation is to get the job done cheaply. Any wc round is only as good as the quality of its custys, no quality or loyalty in people who would happily ditch a windy because someone else is a little bit cheaper. Theres always some idiot just round the corner who'll do it for less than you. Nothing me or anyone can do about it so not sure why im even bothering to respond,  I'll just make hay while i still can.

Re: Undercutting?
« Reply #41 on: January 19, 2012, 07:45:46 pm »
did I mention domestic, if you look at my answer you will see that I was responding to commercial contracts which are normally higher in value than the domestic sector, so if someone said to me, if you drop your price by £50 and the contract is yours, I will look and see if its worth it,  if the contract was only £100 and he wanted it to come down by £50 the answer would be no, but if it was say £300, then depending on the work involve the chances are I would agree.

With domestic, I don't barter.

NBwcs

  • Posts: 997
Re: Undercutting?
« Reply #42 on: January 19, 2012, 08:42:37 pm »
"With domestic, I don't barter"

Fair enough, but plenty on here would frown on undercutting on commercial, it just drives the price down, i appreciate that for some reason there seems to be different principals applied to commercial than residential but as ive already mentioned, its had a very detremental effect round here, no doubt some are still on a good thing but generally the good old days are gone and difficult to see how commercial prices will ever get back to what they were. Undercuttings a bit of a sore subject at the mo as following on from our "friends" from Boston out and out undercutting we have another local bloke following suit. Anyways, rant over, i wish you well.

Re: Undercutting?
« Reply #43 on: January 19, 2012, 09:21:40 pm »
Nick

you will find that a lot of the commercial contracts that are being targeted now is because of the impact of wfp.

With trad it was harder and always took longer, along comes wfp and the same job can be done in a third of the time, but the best part was you still got the old rate of pay, which is excellent.

But alas these days are now coming to an end, and in some ways this is ok but when you lose a contract you have had for years, that is a good payer, maybe you need to look at them closer.

I have only had one guy who targeted my domestic, this was a few years back and he was blantly going to them and saying he would clean them cheaper than me, luckly I never lost any, you do have more customer loyalty with domestic than commercial.

anyway I called him up and said if he carried on doing this, I would target all of his customer and offer to clean them for FREE.

He checked me out, and when i say i will do something, then I do it.

He stopped his ways, mind you I haven't seen him in years, maybe he tried it on someone else and is now propping up a motorway bridge. ::)

CLEANCARE WC

  • Posts: 4454
Re: Undercutting?
« Reply #44 on: January 19, 2012, 09:26:26 pm »
It cracks me up how many people bang on about signwritten vans, logo'd polo shirts etc I have been doing this since day 1 over 10 years ago.
WE CLEAN BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT WITH WATER FED POLE WHEN WORKING AT HEIGHT.