BOC and Volkszone - Gas Offer

[Spot the welders dog]

Not having a pop Ali - it is a good deal. I'm annoyed by the fact that a few months back i popped into BOC and suggested they become more DIY friendly: "These are our prices mate, you won't do better".
I informed him of this site, and the problems that the DIY welder faced with securing gas - Not a whiff of a discount.

Fair play if it was only a test advert (couldn't drill down on his comments on Volkszone as I'm not a member there), let's hope BOC see the light and offer better deals unilaterally.

 

[Alistair]

from what he said mate it will be continued on a bigger scale.. at first my local boc dealer hadnt even heard of the offer and it took a call from manchester sales team to convince him otherwise!!! if they dont tell there own staff how do they expect it to take off?? but he also said that they would give there existing customers this offer when it came time to renew there contract

 

[Spot the welders dog]

Ah sounds promising - think I may pop back to my local BOC agents and badger them once again :-)

 

[Alistair]

justin.crook@boc.com

Exclusive BOC/VZi Discounted gas offer

0161 930 6822 - Office Hours

0800 111 333 Freephone 24/7/365
best bet is to speak to this guy, he bent over backwards to help me with my bottle and rang my local boc agent and set it all up so the bottle was waiting when i got there.

 

[M@tt]

i found justin really helpful as well, as ali said he phoned my local collection place and made sure they were aware i was coming and to have the stuff ready for me.

He said they don't really mind where you see it as the offer is open to everyone, but as you said it does seem a bit daft not to advertise it on the number 1 uk welding & fabrication forum!

 

[Coo]

the bizarre thing is that the website where I saw the advert, had some fancy internet software where it know what websites/or favourites a reader has and targets adverts towards that....

so people with no welding interest may not have seen it...

Totally agree with Spot...can you imagine how much better they would do if they offered it here....how many 'where can I get gas' questions are there !!

Malcolm, maybe you should try and get this offer for here, but instead of a fiver to charity - put it towards running this site

 

[MorrisCooper]

Hi,

My experience...

Signed up for this deal this morning. Phoned Thursday, but Justin was off. Promised a call back, which I got prompt this morning, all sorted by phone and picked up my cylinder this afternoon.

Can only add that the guy was very helpful, He rang my local agent to check they had a cylinder and promised to phone back in a couple of minutes, which he did. Picked it up no bother.

Agent didn't sell cylinder keys, but the local enginerring supplies place did just down the road. Paid £4,95 which thought was quite steep, but hey ho.

Just waiting for my new reg from weldequip then see how it goes

I know that BOC get some negative comments on here on price, but have to say that compared to those cr*ppy disposables, this seems a good deal. I like cheap, but if I get good service then I'm prepared to pay for it.

Just my two penneth

(and no, I don't work for 'em)

 

[Alistair]

didnt sell keys.. tut. got mine chucked in for free!! it is a great deal though and im glad so many of us are taking full advantage of it. compared to disposable bottles the saving per large bottle is around 800 quid so im told..

 

[Darbo]

ive asked him about pure argon for tig
offer was just for mig gas but is doing a deal on the gas price
nothing sorted yet but the offer looks ok

 

[BEEJ]

Picked mine up today. As said above Justin from BOC was really helpful and arranged for my bottle to be collected from our local agent. I have the impression that this is his initiative - good on him! They need more people to sign up and then they will keep it at that price. At last they have learnt something about marketing!

 

[malcolm]

I called Justin this morning about the offer (and also to try and scrounge something else ). He was fantastically helpful on both counts and I made a trip to BOC this afternoon. There's a Datsun 240Z shell I'm supposed to weld up before next summer and that'll take a Y size bottle.

He is a VW enthusiast (hence where the offer was made) so has an understanding of the needs of DIY welders. We don't weld every day, and bottle rental is our major cost for shielding gas. The big 3 gas suppliers have never tried a DIY friendly pricing structure before, so this is a very welcome experiment and I hope it works and goes further. In the past they tended to assume they were dealing with businesses. They thought they were in the business of selling gas. We thought they were in the bottle renting market.

I've asked Justin to get in touch if he ever wants to officially extend the offer over here. For fairness I will ask that any other gas supplier that can offer DIY friendly prices and who are prepared to post prices to get in touch and tell me how I can help. DIY friendly gas pricing is something I like to encourage. I'm in the same boat.

Sadly I had to return my Pure Argon bottle today as well. It's been sitting on the TIG for a year virtually unused, and with my own personal financial crisis this year the rental is just not sensible. I'm going to miss the tzzzzzzzzz.

Is anyone maintaining the gas price spreadsheet? Some cheaper options in there for really infrequent use (like me and my TIG or for people who don't MIG very much at all).

 

[clem dog]

Is this limited to y size bottles and argo light?

Would it not make sense to extend this to larger cylinders (w) and other welding gases as lots of users would be considered "light users" but would still use a bottle quite qiuckly, say once a year. Maybe this is still considered industrial?

In an instance like this they would be stung, maybe twice a year, with handling charges, even under the VW offer.

Would this not then end up, almost, as cheap then to rent the larger bottle? Or am I just being cynical here

Rant over

Clem

 

[Alistair]

Haha, yes its just for size Y although my boc dealer asked me what i was welding so he could recomend which mix i would need. so im guessing it goes for all 3 options they stock.

 

[malcolm]

Is this limited to y size bottles and argo light?
Clem

I think they are just testing - so it's just Argoshield Light size Y for the moment. Both rental and refill costs in the offer are lower than normal and I have no idea how they would deal with industrial users who spot the offer and phone up claiming to be VW owners.

My expectation is if the offer is ever extended is they'll have to balance refill cost against rental cost. So the VW owners who just happen to run multinational welding companies will be better off staying on their existing deal, and us hobby VW owners could benefit from a deal that is more suited to us.

That's only my thought - I've not compared notes with anyone who might actually know what they are talking about.

 

[Gasman]

Just a thought (not sour grapes either you understand) but......

For many years major gas companies have been getting very fat & extremely rich by charging high rentals & transaction/delivery fees and not looking after you unless you are a very high volume customer. Am I correct so far?

Anyone of them could have easily afforded to roll out this "special VW deal" years ago but chose not to because they are so greedy.

Now we are allegedly in the grip of recession they are being left with yards full of cylinders because the small/medium welding companies that they were ripping off have slowed down or disappeared.

Those of us that do repairs/hobbies were of no interest until now and would have to like or lump this big corporate attitude. No doubt when the economy picks up they will be back to their old prices so they can turn the heating back up in their swimming pool's once again.

WHERE ARE YOUR PRINCIPLES GENTELMEN?

Rant Over!

 

[eil]

Old prices, they have just gone up this month, with a poor us letter to their customers, Nail and Head comes to mind with your little rant Gasman. so everyone get your deal in sharpish before the green shoots appear.

 

[Welderpaul]

I used to have a VW Golf? Does that get me a discount on size W cyclinders? About 2 a week should suffice.
I went with AP. I don't get on with Coogar. Probably end up going back to BOC.

 

[Alistair]

lol.. i dont own a vw anymore but i didnt tell him that

 

[BChild]

Just a thought (not sour grapes either you understand) but......

For many years major gas companies have been getting very fat & extremely rich by charging high rentals & transaction/delivery fees and not looking after you unless you are a very high volume customer. Am I correct so far?

Anyone of them could have easily afforded to roll out this "special VW deal" years ago but chose not to because they are so greedy.

Now we are allegedly in the grip of recession they are being left with yards full of cylinders because the small/medium welding companies that they were ripping off have slowed down or disappeared.

Those of us that do repairs/hobbies were of no interest until now and would have to like or lump this big corporate attitude. No doubt when the economy picks up they will be back to their old prices so they can turn the heating back up in their swimming pool's once again.

WHERE ARE YOUR PRINCIPLES GENTELMEN?

Rant Over!

I understand your comments and bearing in mind my experiences with my SIP on argosheild and CO2 at the training session with Malcolm I was very tempted however I found another solution - a friend who in frequently welds was considering returning his BOC rental bottle on the basis that the annual costs were just too much for a hobby welder's activities - we've split the rental costs and will work out gas usage as best we can. Now if I can just fix the SIP...............

 

[Coo]

....
WHERE ARE YOUR PRINCIPLES GENTELMEN?

Rant Over!

Unfortunately having Principles doesnt help to pay the Bills
...and people (hobby'ists) will always go for the cheapest.

I know that good service from local/independant sources is great to have, but rather than pay a small premium to get that, we should expect that from ANY business....