Lincoln Bester 190C - Price Fixing

[northwest]

It's funny that, isn't it... walked into my local airgun shop and told the guy point blank I wanted a gun, a scope, and a bottle, and he couldn't have been more helpful and informative, plus I didn't even have to ask for discount... he knocked plenty off himself after we got through a few more accessories, s good as if not better than any online sale... I wonder what sort of attitude he would have had if I'd went in checking prices against my phone and muttering about prices.

Knowing the shop you are talking about (almost certainly) I could tell you the answer to that. But as we ae on a public forum, best not. :-)

 

[Munkul]

Knowing the shop you are talking about (almost certainly) I could tell you the answer to that. But as we ae on a public forum, best not. :-)

pair of brothers, IIRC? I've only ever dealt with one of them at a time... characters both of them, I reckon I'd have got physically ran out of the shop

 

[Domdom]

Get it all the time. The ones who get right up my nose are those who actually start looking for online prices right in front of you on their phones. They always look askance when they ask me "for my best price" and I stick another tenner on? Well, it's much better for me.

It's amazing how some folks have the bloody neck of a Giraffe

 

[matt1978]

Just speaking more generally about the Industry, I don’t know where it will end. For the last 25-30 years There have always been premium higher priced brands and to a certain degree there has always been low end cheaper offerings that’s not new, but what does seem to be new, is that Cheap just isn’t Cheap enough.

Firstly it used to be the Italian machines which were used at the lower end of the market, then it got to a stage that they couldn’t be discounted any further or purchased cheaply enough so people looked to Eastern Europe to gain a price advantage. Then we all know that shifted much further East to China and for many years there was a definite line in the sand where retailers could offer high end for the customers which wanted/needed it and then products sourced from China as their lower end brand whilst still maintaining a fair margin.

As has been said, slowly but steadily there has been a race to the bottom and I really feel we are now not far away from reaching it. Even now it’s getting to the point where Chinese prices are not cheap enough anymore, so where does it go from there?

In the not so distant past, Lincoln purchased Bester (Poland) to gain an advantage, so ESAB sourced a lot of their Buddy Range from China to keep up, then the prices end up being lowered and lowered by the Online retailers and all of a sudden even the Buddy equipment isn’t cheap enough anymore. Over the last 10 years or so there are many more brands selling machines in Europe that had previously never been heard of and it’s directly as a result of larger Manufacturers/OEMs/Wholesalers sourcing from China at ever cheaper prices to try and compete. (Think R-Tech, Parweld, SIFWeld, Stealth, Jasic etc etc all generally comparable machines initially at comparable prices)

Now we have the classic example where seemingly even the Chinese Jasic prices are no longer cheap enough. Of course I am not advocating that anyone should pay double the amount for exactly the same machine albeit in a different colour but up until 3 months ago £1000 for 200 amp ACDC Tig with a 5 year warranty was classed as a bargain, now some people are bitterly disappointed if they cannot get the machine for less than £500.

This is really not a criticism of anyone, purely just an observation, from an outsider looking in (as we cannot fish in that pond with our Brand) but I really don’t know where it will all end

 

[arther dailey]

Sorted , at least you gave them the opportunity , obviously all your business will be taken else where and thats their own fault eh, hope your pleased with it and all goes well.

as northwest and other state/know its a ruthless world , you have on here a long long post re a certain tig selling at 35/50%ish of the normal retail , the clamber to jump on that boat means everyones out of stock on ebay , it all depends what you want , if your in business and expect support when things go wrong use your local supplier , it may cost more initially but long term but he (due to current corvid situation,hopefully) will be there to back you up and get you out of trouble , buy off a off shore seller and you wont get that sort of service.
Its not the retailers fault they cant compete ,my brother used to run a tv rental/repair business, he closed it when the big sheds started selling tv.s at less than the price he could buy them although he had been in the trade years.
unfortuantly we are now in unknown waters what the future holds ,certainly shops/retail sales are toughing it out, I go to a shop in salisbury for clay cartridges, have used the same people 25/30 years , they had a rough time due to the poisioning episode and now going through it again with corvid , as a long term customer I get good service where as friends berate me ,why waste fuel going there I get mine from xxx they are a few pennies cheaper..
Its a decision only a purchaser can make where and why they spend their monies on what and for years its been going the american way ,throw away society , hence the proliferation of cheap /cheaper and lowest quality that can be got away with.
Personaly I like everyone have had to tighten my belt but a lifetime of make do and mend(by choice) I still like to get something that has back up and parts availability if at all possible.

 

[arther dailey]

I am a slow typer ! seems @matt1978 were typingat the same time

 

[northwest]

unfortuantly we are now in unknown waters what the future holds ,certainly shops/retail sales are toughing it out, I go to a shop in salisbury for clay cartridges, have used the same people 25/30 years , they had a rough time due to the poisioning episode and now going through it again with corvid , as a long term customer I get good service where as friends berate me ,why waste fuel going there I get mine from xxx they are a few pennies cheaper..

The thing is, we often build relationships with people and going to some shops isn't just to buy stuff, it's to visit people and have a chat too. I know that some of my customers come to not only have a chat but to find out what is going on in our little world, the latest updates to procedure and especially the legal. Some of them don't have a computer so they come to us for the news.

As an aside, I no longer stock Clay Cartridges (I do stock some of the specialist stuff ). I cannot see my way clear to making a whole five pounds selling four slabs (a thousand cartridges), storing them, schlepping them about etc. The result of a race to the bottom!

 

[arther dailey]

maybe if your local, I dont go for a chat thats for sure! either need parts or cartridges . saying that the staff are always courteous and helpfull , I recomend them to everyone due to the service they provide.

 

[TechnicAl]

Just speaking more generally about the Industry, I don’t know where it will end. For the last 25-30 years There have always been premium higher priced brands and to a certain degree there has always been low end cheaper offerings that’s not new, but what does seem to be new, is that Cheap just isn’t Cheap enough.

Firstly it used to be the Italian machines which were used at the lower end of the market, then it got to a stage that they couldn’t be discounted any further or purchased cheaply enough so people looked to Eastern Europe to gain a price advantage. Then we all know that shifted much further East to China and for many years there was a definite line in the sand where retailers could offer high end for the customers which wanted/needed it and then products sourced from China as their lower end brand whilst still maintaining a fair margin.

As has been said, slowly but steadily there has been a race to the bottom and I really feel we are now not far away from reaching it. Even now it’s getting to the point where Chinese prices are not cheap enough anymore, so where does it go from there?

In the not so distant past, Lincoln purchased Bester (Poland) to gain an advantage, so ESAB sourced a lot of their Buddy Range from China to keep up, then the prices end up being lowered and lowered by the Online retailers and all of a sudden even the Buddy equipment isn’t cheap enough anymore. Over the last 10 years or so there are many more brands selling machines in Europe that had previously never been heard of and it’s directly as a result of larger Manufacturers/OEMs/Wholesalers sourcing from China at ever cheaper prices to try and compete. (Think R-Tech, Parweld, SIFWeld, Stealth, Jasic etc etc all generally comparable machines initially at comparable prices)

Now we have the classic example where seemingly even the Chinese Jasic prices are no longer cheap enough. Of course I am not advocating that anyone should pay double the amount for exactly the same machine albeit in a different colour but up until 3 months ago £1000 for 200 amp ACDC Tig with a 5 year warranty was classed as a bargain, now some people are bitterly disappointed if they cannot get the machine for less than £500.

This is really not a criticism of anyone, purely just an observation, from an outsider looking in (as we cannot fish in that pond with our Brand) but I really don’t know where it will all end

I havent been involved now for some years but when I was responsible for MIG wire with Lincoln we had a real torrid time. We were trying to make the best possible (the Chairmans directive was that we should be a centre of excellence) but price wise our costs were far higher than the Italians, some of whom made decent wire. They were getting EU subsidies that werent available to us and we were buying the best steel produced in Europe. We got offered cheap stuff but when we tried it the wire didnt perform as well.
Then China happened and all of a sudden the Italians couldnt compete on price. We actually feared the worst but one by one we started to win back customers we had lost. They had tried the chinese and it was awful so their backlash was to come to us and get the best....some of the Italians also disappeared....So actually the chinese getting involved helped.

Once upon a time you would get buyers going elsewhere for 1p a Kg or even less....Ive known 5p a spool cheaper win it.....whn you consider than the welding wire normally makes up about 1% or at most 2% of the cost of a fabrication, saving a penny has very little influence on the end result......Some of the more enlightened realised this and knew that downtime cost more than wire...

Then Lincoln joined the club and took on a Buyer who decided to buy 5000 tonnes of Chinese wire Rod (raw material).....It didnt meet the spec....So I rejected it but the big Boss decided to go ahead....it was a disaster....it halved our production and 6000 tonnes were returned....the 5000 plus another 1000 of good stuff that was mixed in.....

 

[northwest]

Then Lincoln joined the club and took on a Buyer who decided to buy 5000 tonnes of Chinese wire Rod (raw material).....It didnt meet the spec....So I rejected it but the big Boss decided to go ahead....it was a disaster....it halved our production and 6000 tonnes were returned....the 5000 plus another 1000 of good stuff that was mixed in.....

Some people will just not listen. And will never learn.

 

[Joe 90]

Wow, all very one sided, their is always 2 sides to a story.
Maybe that person checking Google prices is trying to keep his own business a float and scraping through buy getting small discounts in different places.
When buying car parts one local supplier can be twice as dear as the other. Sometimes the crap brands can end up more expensive than the genuine parts. It would be very foolish if things were tight and you were blowing money to keep a local supplier while your own business goes burst.

Put the shoe on the other foot, When you are getting your stock in do you just get it in from the most local man if a bigger supplier could half the price and give you more profit. Of course you don't.
Yes I do believe we should try to keep local businesses cos when the big boys take it over they can do what they want. But not at the cost of your own business.
It would be nice to have that much money that you didn't need to price things.

 

[northwest]

Put the shoe on the other foot, When you are getting your stock in do you just get it in from the most local man if a bigger supplier could half the price and give you more profit. Of course you don't.

There is only one importer of Lincoln, one importer of Jasic, one importer of Esab. You can't exactly shop around. There are two sides to a story as you say, very much so. But have a look around on the internet, it is all about "protecting the consumer". You are not going to find much about protecting the shopkeeper.

This thread has tried to balance that a little :-)

 

[arther dailey]

personally self employed ,sole trader , so I see every side of the story , buy the best quality to make the best and work v hard to make and sell at the the best price to stay afloat , you dont get given anything in this life , that is unless you work for a major firm and get ...well lets call them freebies on the side, paid holidays ,etc etc, like everything you pays yer monies and take your choice .It seems a lot of people now work legit day time jobs for the taxman but then do "homers" on the side , all well and good but it undercuts genuine self employed anyways getting off the track of original post ..sorry

 

[Munkul]

Well, for me and my small business, I could have bought 5 of those cheap unbranded Jasic machines for the price that i paid for my Lorch TIG set. It would have been far more cost effective to buy two cheap machines and use one if the other broke down.
I've used the Jasic TIG sets before and they are fine... maybe not as smooth as the Lorch and doesn't have quite the same level of control options

but for paying work on stainless, absolutely no difference to the finished product.

Did I make the wrong choice? I don't think so... I wanted a high quality European produced product that will last years and years, with very good dealer support. That's what i paid for, and that's what I got.

It seems that most people have one criteria in mind when they muse about buying a welder on here... latch onto a half decent machine (or hopefully half decent) and try and find the absolute cheapest way to get it delivered to their door.

 

[Tangledfeet]

There's a perfect example of 'cheap not being cheap enough' going on in the Sherman/Jasic discussion that's into fifty pages now.

 

[arther dailey]

It would be interesting to know( re the tig s) how many will be sitting unused on shelves in a few months time , talking about pricing , my brother just started work ( a long time back) and the first lcd watches came out , £80, Oh Ime having one of those , he saved and bought one, dads advice was wait they will be giving them away with cornflakes in a couple of years , and yes within afew years they were just a couple pounds..its the same with a lot of kit , if you can make and Sell them in the tens of thousands the price comes down.

 

[northwest]

It seems that most people have one criteria in mind when they muse about buying a welder on here... latch onto a half decent machine (or hopefully half decent) and try and find the absolute cheapest way to get it delivered to their door.

Don't kid yourself, it is not just restricted to Welders. Going back to retail, look what we have in the High Street - Banks, Building Societies, Fast Food, Amusement Arcades, Charity and Pound Shops. A toxic mix which is guaranteed to attract people with agendas not conducive to having anything like a well heeled clientele dropping in. High rates costs and "pedestrianised areas" finished the High Streets. They may well be accessible by the disabled wheelchair bound (don't start, a young member of my family is wheelchair bound) but they do not make up the majority of the population with plenty of disposable. Most people want to park their <name of flash car> outside or just up the street. Not in a Park and Ride. Why is it that Council Leaders cannot see this? It has always perplexed me. Quite often town centres will be "pedestrianised" as a way of getting round a fundamental problem, parking. It doesn't solve it, it just shuts everyone up.

Everyone wants everything for the absolute lowest amount of money and they want it delivered yesterday. And they want it to last forever AND be able to resell it for more than they paid. This is not a whinge or rant by a disillusioned shopkeeper, far from it. I am really quite happy with my lot, the really stupid customers make my day and we (fellow shopkeepers) get to share some really funny stories. It makes the job interesting and keeps me on my toes! No, my observations are more about retail generally. I am genuinely worried about the future for people. What people perceive as wider choice actually isn't, the big players place in front of you at the top of the search results the products THEY want to sell. Not what you thought you want.

Every day, searching for things, I come across websites which I just know are a contrivance to sell a particular manufacturers or retailers products. So called review websites which are nothing of the sort, even just a cursory examination shows that they have been churned out from a website factory by non native english speakers in the interest of selling those products. In many cases you will find the top three or four in the list are by the same manufacturer/seller and the rest by one of their partners. In some cases, clicking through to "support the website" actually puts money in the manufacturers pocket, and they didn't even sell anything!

 

[Munkul]

@northwest I absolutely agree. I often find targeted ads on google and facebook, so clearly through the technology of data mining etc. Sometimes I even bite, and buy whatever it is that i didn't know existed but now can't live without
Everyone wants their own car, myself as much as the next person, and with that comes the practicalities of shopping in places where good parking is available.
My biggest complaint against most councils is their shortsighted approach of charging people a fortune to park in small carparks near town centres. Build MORE parking, make BETTER access in and out of town, make it FREE and see how the high street shops do then... but no, that's too expensive in the short run so all they will do is complain after the small shops shut and pound stores are the only ones left. Quite depressing.

Then again, it could be argued that some small shops are redundant anyway. So many things we buy online without a second thought. Like it or not, we're already here.

I have to admit, only reason I go into carlisle town centre is for clothes or christmas shopping... 3x a year maybe? Everything else is at the supermarket...

Recent goods purchases were hoover, tumble dryer, coffee machine... all bought online... why would I want to go into town for these? was my reasoning...

 

[TechnicAl]

What I find strange is that the shops are crying out for customers....use it or lose it.....yet some of them refer you to their website from the shop.......I bought a camera from Currys....saw it on their website but went to the shop to buy it (before lockdown) as I like to be able to speak to someone just to confirm my choice....I did this but the camera was more expensive in the shop (and they didnt have any stock) so the assistant told me to order one off the net....

 

[chopper_harris]

One issue that I continually face is clients who want me to use service parts and oils that they supply when bringing in a bike for service.

I face endless arguments when quoting for a 6,000 or 12,000 mile service.
"I can buy the parts cheaper online, will you supply the labour, and then warranty your work on the parts I supply" - NO !

I need to take a blended approach - maybe 15% margin on parts, and a sensible hourly rate.
There are so many dodgy filters and chains on eBay that I simply refuse to fit custy supplied parts.

Hopefully the restoration market will pick up again - you can quote a price based on 2-3 months of work for one project, with weekly review points and the ability to invoice for unexpected issues.