So we should all try to support local businesses should we?

[gadgetman]

Trying to make contact with 5 local firms to get some quotes and after several calls and emails over the last week not one has bothered to reply.

I thought small businesses were struggling for work?

If no replies by next Monday, it's off to support the big chain instead.

[BossFox]

In my experience, they are not only fine, but most of the time can't remember the name of their company.

 

90% of the ones answer the phone with "hello" which is followed by me asking them if that's the correct company I've got through to.

I mean, it's not difficult is it to say the company name!

 

Usually avoid these as it makes me think the company line is also their only private line.  So they are tiny, may not be around long.

[sheldon_cz]

I'm usually getting a rash when I need to deal with local anything, save for recommendations from friends. Parts, gadgets, tools, all ordered and delivered from an e-shop in a timely manner. Voting with my wallet.

[Llanigraham]

Just had a new central heating boiler fitted. 2 local chaps quoted against British Gas. Both could do the job within a week, and out of the 2 the chap who quoted slightly more but didn't charge "extras" got the job.

 

4 companies quoted for fitting 4kw solar array. Most local got the job because they can start tomorrow and don't charge for scaffolding as they have their own.

 

New PVC front door and a blown double glazed unit given to a local company after the national chain that fitted said "you are too far from our depot to bother quoting!!"

 

Local electrical shop is cheaper for equivalent white goods than any of the big sheds, and doesn't charge for delivery.

 

About to order a new kitchen from a company in Aberystwyth who are £4k cheaper than B & Q or Ikea, and better quality.

 

Local furniture store (Hafren Furnishing) is cheaper than any of the national companies and has better quality goods.

 

Local butchers are cheaper than Tesco's, provide much better meat and know what "service" means, so if we want a specific cut we can get it.

 

The only thing I have found I can't get cheaper locally is a new laptop.

[gadgetman]

Which is what I'm keen to do, but no one seems interested in my business.

[Aspman]

There are **** companies that are big, there are **** companies that are small.

You never find out until it's too late.

 

Service is service irrespective.

 

I'll happily pay a bit more to get a local guy to do it. But not a lot more.

[grr666]

I've just employed a local builders to work on my house.

The scaffolders came first and took just two hours to put it up

both front and rear. They did this the Friday before the builders came.

 

Inside a week the builders stripped and re roofed my house.(This took 2 days)

They started this the day before the nice weather turned into storms but

managed to get enough done on day 1 to ensure the water stayed out. 

 

Also they fitted a new boiler in my loft which also meant running a gas supply up

there, (on some of the hottest days of the year) and decommissioned  

and  removed my old back boiler which was in the lounge, water tank from loft,

copper cylinder from upstairs cupboard, old lead pipework.Leaving me with all

of the scrap, Ran new pipework (which they made a beautiful job of)  and managed to

do all of this without pulling a ceiling down or lifting a floor.

 

Finally to finish they installed new guttering and downpipes, and inserted flue liners

into both my chimneys ready for the forthcoming twin log burner installs.  

Both stoves arrived yesterday, a 5kw plate steel one for the living room and a more

traditional looking 8kw iron one for my kitchen. Both built by localish firms too

Aarrow in Devon and Saltfire in Dorset.

They will be fitting them properly next week when the register plates I am having made

arrive so I can seal up the lower half of my chimneys and have a fixing point for the flues.

Being a sole trader/small business myself, I can see the importance of doing this.

 

And in return I have had the offer of some day work doing things such as tiling for the contractor

I hired,he saw some of my work in my own house and immediately said there was some

work available through his client base, also any smaller multi trade jobs that were maybe a bit too

small for his firm could be coming my way because he doesn't like to turn people away because

their jobs are a bit piddly. Whereas those are the sort of jobs that are my bread and butter.

So out of this a partnership of sorts has developed. And I will be a sub contractor of his just as soon

as I am fit enough to work again.

[GentleGiant]

If they are that good, I suggest you name them, so that they get some good exposure for their hard work.

 

Me?? A mixed bag locally, I got some excellent new windows fitted for a very reasonably price; I would name the guy but he has spoilt it by not providing the building cert despite several reminders.

 

On the other hand, when I tried to get some quotes for fitting out my dining room with a multi fuel boiler - so knock out chimney breast, and fit liner - only one reply despite posting the job on all the local "Jobs Required" boards, and emailing half a dozen companies.

[Gwilo]

I find the response seems to be down to what the company deals with - is it purely about the product, or what the product means to the customer? 

 

SWMBO got lumbered with the Social Workers case the other day and had to ring a stairlift company. A large stair lift company.

After answering the phone with the company name,the response was hugely unprofessional, being questioned how she got the number, refused to give their name, demanded to know who she was.  When she asked if they could provide a quote for a stairlift  was told "I'm not quoting a price unless you;re going to have it".  When she tried to explain she couldn't authorise purchases, she was accused her of being a spam sales caller, if she ever rang again they would report her and get the number barred.....all this over a speaker phone with her manager present.  So that company will never get any business from the entire PCT again.

 

Conversely, when I was organising our wedding, we spoke to lots of venues about what they could provide, costs etc.....all pretty standard, fixed menu's etc.  However the co-ordinator/planner at one venue spent more time talking about our interests and background, then outlined what they could do, gave us all the information about who would do the catering etc.  And was cheaper.

Result, they got the business, and continued to surprise and delight with touches we'd never seen done before - Framed newspaper from the day, discreetly supplying tissues prior to speeches and anniversary card a year later.

 

Put people at the heart of your business, product will take care of itself.

[Gwilo]

 also any smaller multi trade jobs that were maybe a bit too

small for his firm could be coming my way because he doesn't like to turn people away because

their jobs are a bit piddly. Whereas those are the sort of jobs that are my bread and butter.

Unlike the builder our landlord hired.....he doesn't like turning away jobs either, but the bigger jobs clearly get priority as it's now been six months since the leaks were reported, two months since he started (only working 3 hours a day on weekends only) and three weeks since he finished but the scaffolding is still up......at least your builder has the decency to ensure he a) has the capacity to do the work in a timely fashion and is willing to line up someone else to do the work so customers don't get given a bad impression.

[Llanigraham]

Just had a new central heating boiler fitted. 2 local chaps quoted against British Gas. Both could do the job within a week, and out of the 2 the chap who quoted slightly more but didn't charge "extras" got the job.

 

4 companies quoted for fitting 4kw solar array. Most local got the job because they can start tomorrow and don't charge for scaffolding as they have their own.  LLANI SOLAR

 

New PVC front door and a blown double glazed unit given to a local company after the national chain that fitted said "you are too far from our depot to bother quoting!!" GOOD: RED KITE WINDOWS. BAD: EVEREST!

 

Local electrical shop is cheaper for equivalent white goods than any of the big sheds, and doesn't charge for delivery. WH PRICE

 

About to order a new kitchen from a company in Aberystwyth who are £4k cheaper than B & Q or Ikea, and better quality. MORRIS BROS KITCHENS LTD

 

Local furniture store (Hafren Furnishing) is cheaper than any of the national companies and has better quality goods.

 

Local butchers are cheaper than Tesco's, provide much better meat and know what "service" means, so if we want a specific cut we can get it.

 

The only thing I have found I can't get cheaper locally is a new laptop.

Now named.

[io1901]

 

 

About to order a new kitchen from a company in Aberystwyth who are £4k cheaper than B & Q or Ikea, and better quality.

 

 

 

 

We've just done the same thing. Bespoke kitchen for a similar price to B & Q (actually cheaper than B & Q!) and IKEA (a little bit more expensive.) We do have to wait for it to be made but the extension isn't built yet!  

[Lady Elanore]

i have used a couple of guys from this site (see below). Both have been truly excellent. The roofer I used had a look at a problem of my elderly neighbours gutter and fixed it for free for him.

 

Here's a link for the site.

 

I don't go through the site directly, but read the user reviews and find the builder by doing a quick web search of their name/business.

Edited 1 August, 2013 by Lady Elanore

[MartynVRS]

I always try to use local businesses where I can now. Nice to build a relationship with them too. They see you always go to them you get treated better. Working for a small shop I do see the other side too. You do get "customers" who try all shapes to get prices down. These aren't loyal and just want the absolute cheapest so sometimes you feel why should I go out of my way to help them. I've had people try boots on in-store, Google in front of me the cheapest then walk out. They have no shame whatsoever and sometimes it's a small difference in price and if margins are tight there's not much I can do about it. 

I need a pair of good binoculars for my dad's 60th coming up but there's not many local places selling them which is a shame. Use them or lose them. Bought my first camera locally so I'll have to see what he has now.

Trade is different and I normally go by word of mouth. My cousins tiling started like this and now he's got so much work he's struggling to do it all. Always says after Christmas he's struggling to find work but in reality it's not it's just he's so flat out in the Summer through to Winter it seems like it. He's done jobs for contractors and when they've seen how good he is they've told him he can do all future jobs for them too. My cousin likes the big jobs but when you can do a lot of small jobs quickly and well that can pay off too. 

[Dr Zoidberg]

The only thing I have found I can't get cheaper locally is a new laptop.

 

If only Dragon Computers were still going.....

[Babs]

To be honest, I weigh up value and service, and where I find that buying locally gets me increased service for the increased price, I'll go there. If I get no increase in service (I too have found companies like gadgetman, sadly) by money goes elsewhere.

 

Incidentally, my "local" shop is a Tesco Extra, 15mins walk from my house.

[Waplord]

Unfortunately i tend to do most of my shopping via the big firms, usually due to convenience sake, the local butchers etc aren't open when its convenient to me to go in, closing at noon on a weekend and the ones who are open all day often have ran out of produce by the end of the day. Working till 6pm most days means that any shopping i have to do has to be done out of hours or at weekends usually on a Sunday again a lot of the local shops around here aren't open. To get my trade they need to have more convenient hours to me if they want to win my custom.

[Clunkclick]

I wasn't impressed with the roofing experts, both national and local, that I had round.

 

All the three locals I had round,  all said the roof couldn't be repaired and would have to be replaced. (Wrong according to an Civil engineering type I consulted).

 

Two quoted without actually getting up and  inspecting the roof .

 

Only one produced a short-form of method statement for working at height.

 

All the quotes, except one, had no detail regarding guarentees (In fact because they weren't registered with the Manufacturer of the material they proposed to lay and therefore couldn't offer the manufactuers's workmanship guarentee only the materials guarentee at best - which would be avialable to any joe soap applying the material - so plenty of get outs there for the manufacturer/supplier ).

 

All, but one were silent as regards professional indemnity cover - so no warm feeling there.

 

I suspected, from the level of the price quoted, that all of the quotes apart from one, were going to use questionably safe access methods, including ladders. 

 

All were slilent as regards compliance with the changed building regs (When I checked the Competent Roofer site, some were registered, but not for the material they proposed to use on my roof) and one actually displayed NFRC logo on the quote and didn't actually belong when I checked. Many other discrepancies as well

 

The national company pricing was nearly double the local quote.

 

Wunderschone !

 

 

British business, no wonder the Germans are winning.

 

 

Sidenote.

 

I got a special e-mail invitation from Amazon inviting me to attend some interview/focus group/debriefing in London - presumably due to the amount of sit-on-arse business I've been doing with them over the last year ? I'm going to plead the headaches. Locked in a room for a day in the West-end with a swivelling bow-tie marketing fiend and the best of the left field of the socially and economically disadvantaged. No thanks ! And what's more is that they couldn't afford my day-rate. Bezos, no ! 

 

 

Nick

Edited 1 August, 2013 by Clunkclick

[Graeme B]

Up with me you tend to find although local companies are a bit more expensive you can almost guarantee a good job. Being on an island if they get bad reviews word travels fast and they never work again, gives you good peace of mind sometimes. Bigger firms visit the island maybe a few times a year and want to do as many jobs as possible in a quick time.

 

Large window company came up here last year and they guy was an absolute @rse. Didnt go with them and since have heard some people had nothing but bother. 

 

I always stick local as much as possible. 

[Lady Elanore]

the roof guy I just used, initially turned up with a cherry picker and also took photos whilst up there. he then did me a quote and emailed it to me with a comprehensive breakdown of what needed doing and included the pictures he took to show the specific areas in question. Quite cheap too. Top chap

[seboni121]

Got local chimney bloke to put new slab and chimney pot ( cracked ) he took down old bricks and swept the chimney £350, I've done most of it myself though, put 2 new drains in where previous it was a soak away ( which wasn't a soak away ) just starting to build a wall what you think

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

Impressive Saw if it cuts through those blocks. 

[Clunkclick]

A wall that long without a pier ?

 

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

the roof guy I just used, initially turned up with a cherry picker and also took photos whilst up there. he then did me a quote and emailed it to me with a comprehensive breakdown of what needed doing and included the pictures he took to show the specific areas in question. Quite cheap too. Top chap

That's the Chancellor back to plan B then or not ?

 

Nick

[davejay]

Local guy came round to clear our gutters last year (three storey house, far too high for a terrified of heights coward to attempt). He charged hardly anything and came back twice to sort the overflow problem without asking any more payment. This year we had something stuck up there and he came the following day, sorted it in five minutes and wouldn't take a penny ("I was just passing" - sure).