FFX gone into administration.

[Keithmac]

"Takings are vanity - profit is sanity"

Too right!.

 

[ukracer]

We nearly went down that rabbit hole with tyres (no £11 million turnover mind!).

It looks great getting all the jobs through at £300 a go but when you break it all down working out how much time was spent and the margin on the tyres etc there was no real profit in it.

Now we charge £25 a wheel mounting fee just to make it profitable, so that was £25 a wheel less before, and practically no profit made.

We also sat on probably £10 - 15k or more worth of tyres on the shelf, now we order them in per job.

I can see how companies can quite easily get sucked into the high volume, low price business model and get into trouble.

If we do half the tyre jobs now we still make more profit than before. To be fair the majority of customers are fine with it.

whats a mounting fee? I can understand if they are buying them off the net but I am surprised most customers are ok with it.

Is that 75 quid [per tyre fitting previously?

I must be just a tight wad. lol

 

[Erie Fred]

BBC had a new story on today how Tesco in competing against, Aldi's is offering "like for Like" but not exactly....

 

[ukracer]

BBC had a new story on today how Tesco in competing against, Aldi's is offering "like for Like" but not exactly....

I would guess that the vast majority like for like prices are not close.

 

[ajlelectronics]

I would guess that the vast majority like for like prices are not close.

A Sprat to catch a Mackerel.

 

[Munkul]

Big difference between gross profit and net profit. Especially the bigger you are and the bigger the overheads.
Apparently the big supermarkets only make 2% net profit. I imagine a lot of big volume retailers are similar.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Big difference between gross profit and net profit. Especially the bigger you are and the bigger the overheads.
Apparently the big supermarkets only make 2% net profit. I imagine a lot of big volume retailers are similar.

Tesco turnover £62 billion or something a year.
2% profit is not bad..

 

[Mick Annick]

whats a mounting fee? I can understand if they are buying them off the net but I am surprised most customers are ok with it.

Is that 75 quid [per tyre fitting previously?

I must be just a tight wad. lol

Normal over here to pay for fitting, people buy tyres online and have them delivered to their garage of choice for fitting.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

2% profit is not bad..

Yea but when margins are so slim it doesn't take much I would guess to make a 2% loss instead!

 

[Onoff]

FFX? FFS! I was looking at them earlier for Makita sanders.

 

[MattF]

FFX? FFS! I was looking at them earlier for Makita sanders.

There are a few other good tool suppliers.

 

[Monster966]

Bugger, ordered a couple of Makita batteries Thursday, got confirmation of processing for despatch with a tracking number Friday morning. Anyone know who they’d use for class 9 deliveries? Tracking number’s no good without knowing who.
Shame I’ve never had any issues before and for what I’ve bought they’ve been pretty good on pricing.

 

[SilentWraith]

Bugger, ordered a couple of Makita batteries Thursday, got confirmation of processing for despatch with a tracking number Friday morning. Anyone know who they’d use for class 9 deliveries? Tracking number’s no good without knowing who.
Shame I’ve never had any issues before and for what I’ve bought they’ve been pretty good on pricing.

They use DPD.

 

[Monster966]

Thanks SilentWraith. Tracking number not recognised, oh well I’ll give it a day or two and then try my credit card for refund.

 

[xmetal]

I've used them quite a few times and they were competitive on prices. Not always the best on packaging though, I had a Makita mitre saw come in its original box. The box was damaged including the saw and some fittings were missing that had escaped through a hole. They did replace it quickly though and the second box came a bit better packaged.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Same here....they sent me the 110v track saw by mistake but quickly sent out the correct 240v one the next day.

 

[winchman]

A tough market for them competing against the likes of Screwfix who have the advantage of having shops in nearly every town and when you need something today rather than tomorrow... I can't imagine there'll be a long queue of prospective buyers.

I used to run a mobile tool shop on my days off Like Snap On but at the opposite end of the scale. As soon as Ebay and Screw fix started to impact it I shut up shop.
I was trying to compete with Ebay sellers who buy a container of one item and make 50p on the item and 50p on postage.
It's a tough world for any business. Its interesting to see out of the 5 or 6 suppliers I used only two are still trading, one is only just, if he wasn't a one man band he would have folded long ago.

 

[qwakers]

17track

Universal tracking site for when you don't know the carrier

 

[MetalFusion]

I am quite shocked and a bit saddened at this news, I had no idea things were that bad. Where is the best place go now? I am loathed to use TS or SF because I am against overall monopoly and their . Whilst I didn't use FFX much (2-3 orders a month) I did put a fair amount of cash through their books. I tended to only purchase the bigger bits from FFX as they were very competitive on price and with special offers would blow the bigger outlets out of the park. I've used its.co.uk a few times in the past, but 1 or 2 times I've had to return items, either because faulty or damaged on delivery (as in big dents). I tend to use efix.uk for the day to day stuff (saw's, spray paint, supplies etc) but they don't sell the heavier / more expensive stuff. It's just so hard to find decent honest and reliable businesses which don't want to either rip you off or not appreciate your custom when there is a problem. Any recommendations would be fantastic!!

 

[wyn]

I am quite shocked and a bit saddened at this news, I had no idea things were that bad. Where is the best place go now? I am loathed to use TS or SF because I am against overall monopoly and their . Whilst I didn't use FFX much (2-3 orders a month) I did put a fair amount of cash through their books. I tended to only purchase the bigger bits from FFX as they were very competitive on price and with special offers would blow the bigger outlets out of the park. I've used its.co.uk a few times in the past, but 1 or 2 times I've had to return items, either because faulty or damaged on delivery (as in big dents). I tend to use efix.uk for the day to day stuff (saw's, spray paint, supplies etc) but they don't sell the heavier / more expensive stuff. It's just so hard to find decent honest and reliable businesses which don't want to either rip you off or not appreciate your custom when there is a problem. Any recommendations would be fantastic!!

Powertoolmate in Saltash.