Kitchen Sales - Deal or No Deal?
Kitchen Sales – Deal or No Deal?
Big retailer sales
At this time of year there are many national kitchen retailers (no doubt you’ve seen their adverts on TV or in a magazine!) who offer what appears to be unparalleled discounts. Yet at Stuart J Warrington & Co we continue to price our kitchens in the same way as we do any other month of the year. Why is this? Are you missing out on a deal?
If you look at the origins of retail sales their purpose was to clear the old season’s stock and make way for the new incoming stock.
Why kitchen sales are different
So why isn’t stock clearance applicable in kitchens? These days it’s rare for kitchens to be taking up shelf space waiting to be replaced. They are made to order or, at the very least where large retailers do have cabinets sat on the shelf, the cabinets can be used with a number of different doors so selling off at huge discount is not required.
Well what about other discounts? The cabinets and doors of a kitchen usually have a reasonably fixed base cost. The labour, materials, machinery and premises required to make a cabinet in January costs no more or less than it does in March, June or September.
What’s the true value of a kitchen sold in the sale?
So if that’s the case how does a retailer offer a sale price of 50% off plus an extra 25% off all cabinets and doors? Let’s take a quick look at those numbers. If the discounted price is £4,500, then if you first put the 25% back on you get to £6,000 and then if you put the 50% back on you get to a £12,000 selling price. Don’t forget you then need to add accessories, appliances, work surfaces and fitting!
So what is the true value of this mythical sale kitchen? There seems to be a few possible scenarios here:
at a £4,500 sale price the retailer is making a loss on the kitchen – is this likely?
The large retailer buys the kitchens cheaper during the sale – most of the big retailers make their own kitchen cabinets, those that don’t negotiate prices which means the suppliers could not afford to discount to these levels – so how likely is it that costs have changed? Slim to non-existent.
the retailer genuinely manages to sell the same kitchen for £12,000 at other times of the year when they are still making money on the £4,500 price – would you like to be the customer that walks in to a large retailer’s showroom in March and is asked to pay £12,000 for the same units? Is that the retailer you want to deal with?
The kitchen is never truly sold for £12,000 (note the difference between "advertised for" and "sold for"). The large retailer may, on the odd day in October, advertise it at a higher selling price. However, after discounting the original quoted price it usually achieves a selling price much closer to the advertised sale price.
In reality the last option is the most likely scenario. That’s why we don’t enter into silly sales advertising.
Why we don’t do disingenuous sale prices
We like to be honest with our customers and ask a fair price for the quality and value of the kitchens we supply. We like to build trust by being fair with everyone we deal with. What does this mean for you?
We don’t pretend to be offering a ridiculous bargain – what we do offer is high quality rigid kitchens in a wide range of styles and carcass colours made to order at a fair price;
no matter what day of the week or year you meet us, we will all always quote you a fair price for the kitchen and appliances we offer;
the price you pay isn’t dependent on how hard you are prepared to bargain – we don’t start high and see if you will accept the price and knock off 30 – 50% if you bargain hard enough. We offer a fair price from the outset;
We don’t do high pressure selling with a limited time offer unless we, in turn, genuinely have a limited time offer from one of our selected suppliers;
If you have been quoted a sale price for a flat pack kitchen with a foil wrapped door we probably won’t be competitive on price. We’re okay with that. What we offer is better quality, so we wouldn’t expect to compete on price alone. Where we compete is when considering overall value based on the quality of our product and services.
If you have been quoted a price for kitchen which has, for example, painted ash doors or painted and lacquered gloss handleless doors with colour co-ordinated rigid cabinets we are likely to be able to compete with the “sales” without the stress, pressure or hard bargaining!
Please call us if you’d like to know more about how we can guide you through the design and installation process.
