Peter Brindle was just telling me that our major competitors Parry and Lincat are now charging for overnight deliveries to end users although three day deliveries to distributors remain free of charge. We understand the logic behind these charges which are to encourage distributors to hold stock, to try and give these stockists a competitive edge and, of course, to improve the Parry and Lincat profit margins. For many years our customers have enjoyed free next day delivery from Instanta reducing their need to hold expensive stock and, when they have wanted a product to be sent direct to their customer, saving them carriage charges. We have no plans to change our policy. With 99% of our products in stock you can order today before 2.30 and have them delivered next working day with the very reliable APC anywhere in the UK (remote regions excepted) free of charge. How's that for value?
No currency surcharges either. We notice that some manufacturers have also added a currency surcharge to their prices. We have no surcharges and no plans for any. OK so our elements and our taps have increased in cost substantially due to the weakness of the pound but has anybody forgotten that the major constituent of most boilers and most catering equipment is stainless steel? Stainless steel now costs a fraction of what it peaked at last year. Hmmm.
Thanks to a gift from our friends Mark and Nita at the brilliant Workhouse Marketing, our service manager Max and a friend are going to see Snow Patrol at the Echo Arena tonight. I am not familiar with their music but Max and Mark both tell me they are great so I must give them a try. I read a review of Tina Turner's concert at the O2 Arena yesterday that was so good that I immediately went onto eBay and bought a couple of tickets for her performance at the MEN. I hope have her energy when I get to 69.
Did you see Channel 4's much hyped and publicised drama Red Riding last night? There were some brilliant performances from Sean Bean and Andrew Garfield(above)and the whole thing was so dark that I was itching to turn up the brightness on the TV. It seems that the Yorkshire police were water boarding long before Abu Ghraib existed and I wouldn't have been surprised if Sabrina Harman had popped up with her camera. As is often the case with programmes like this, the story was in my opinion, somewhat far fetched but this did not prevent it from being an excellent two hours viewing and I strongly recommend that you give next week a try.
I see that our wonderful chancellor has now, with the cooperation of the Bank of England, introduced the mysterious quantitative easing and there are plans to pump £150,000,000,000 of new money into the country. As we have a population of 61,000,000 that's £2,459 for every man woman and child. And where is the money going? To the banks. And what will the banks do with it? If the last year is anything to go by, make it disappear. You can be sure that it won't find its way into the economy. Why not simply side step the middle men and give everyone their £2,459 on condition that they spend it straight away.That would guarantee an upswing.
With just a few hours to my deadline we now have two people at the top of my Colour of Money leaderboard both on £85,000. That's Craigybacon and CSL (City Servicing). Remember 4.30 (UK time) is the closing time and £85,000 is the target to beat or equal. We will accept any scores up to a maximum £105,000.
Finally I will leave you with a spectacular You Tube video. I have to question myself in putting this video up. The victim survived but, had he died, would I have even though about showing it? However, it makes the guy shown crossing the railway track on the blog a week ago look as if he was out for a stroll in the park.
No comments:
Post a Comment