Opinions on prices wanted please - Thanks

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OWNER AND FLEET OPERATORS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

— ADMIN AND/OR MODS - I HAVEN’T LINKED MY WEBSITE AT ANY STAGE OF THIS POST—
— IF THIS POST ISN’T IN LINE WITH FORUM RULES, PLEASE EDIT IT AND LET ME KNOW —
— IT’S PURELY FOR MARKET RESEARCH AND TO HELP ME OUT —

Hello all,

I currently work 4 on and 4 off as an agency ltd driver. As a side line, I set up a e-commerce website which sells HGV lighting and a few other things like tacho rolls, torches etc. The point being to employ my mother who is currently a prison officer, but is getting too old for the job. Eventually I’d love to expand and work for it myself, but that’s very long term.

Now, my stock levels are ok, I think I have a good range. The site is well designed and I offer the following:

Good prices
I’m VAT registered so this can be claimed back
I dispatch on the same day by courier
I enclose 2 VAT invoices with every order
LED products come with a 24 month warranty
Fast email support
Free Delivery for orders over £100

On the downside, we don’t offer collection or same day delivery. We can’t be contacted by phone.

Now as I’m just a driver and not a transport fleet operator, it’s been hard to ascertain what my prices should be, and what exactly fleet operators are looking for.

I don’t get many sales at all and I’m trying to find out why. My biggest customer is a world wide supply chain and I supply bulbs to their site near me, but it’s nothing to make a difference as they don’t order much anyway.

I reckon my prices are excellent, the quality is very good and the 24 month warranty is good too.

Because of the forum rules, I don’t think it would be right to actually link my website so you can take a look and let me know. What I will do, is list some prices from the site, and if you would be so kind as to tell me they’re too expensive, good, or just right?

Product 1: 24v H7 Bulbs - £1.39 each +VAT (If 100 bought)
Product 2: Tacho Rolls (3pk) - £2.09 +VAT
Product 3: 9 inch Spotlamps with LED ring - £29.99 +VAT

Product 4: White Front Marker (Common Type) - £4.39 +VAT

Product 5: LED Side Marker with Bracket - £4.99 +VAT

Product 6: Aspock Europoint 2 Light Unit with LED Side Marker - £81.19 + VAT (Non LED Side marker unit is £68.59)

Product 7: Aspock Ecopoint unit with side marker - £40.29 + VAT

Product 9: Traditional AVIA type rear hamburger light - £4.09 +VAT

Product 10: LED Version of the above - £22.59 +VAT

So there’s 10 products and their prices, would you be so kind as to tell me what you think?

Just copy and paste this into a reply and delete whatever is inapplicable:

Product 1: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 2: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 3: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 4: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 5: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 6: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 7: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 8: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 9: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD
Product 10: GOOD, JUST RIGHT, BAD

Any other comments at all would be really well received. Good or bad, it just needs to be constructive.

Thanks in advance
John

2

Ooh, ■■■■■ in and whistles through teeth inwardly

Bulbs are prone to theft, 100 H7 sat around, most workshops have a van call in with all your products, once or twice a week or even daily, not knocking your idea, but a man with a van can check all the consumables and pick them.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

3

Wheel Nut:
Ooh, ■■■■■ in and whistles through teeth inwardly

Bulbs are prone to theft, 100 H7 sat around, most workshops have a van call in with all your products, once or twice a week or even daily, not knocking your idea, but a man with a van can check all the consumables and pick them.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for that. The idea to set up was more to cater for owner operators, and fleet operators that want to go outside their ‘van call in’ method.

For example, a customer of mine pays (or paid rather) £1.54 per bulb from one of those, he gets them from me at £1.39. Not a massive difference, but a saving of 15p per bulb is £15 in his pocket.

Side markers too, I must be cheaper than the man in the van, especially if he charges a call out.

Do you think the prices are ok though?

4

I can’t see anything wrong with your pricing, certainly not any worse than any of the places I currently use. Have you tried promoting yourself on any of the Facebook pages for owner drivers, or the truckbay page?

5

Pricing looks fine to me, are you on ebay? if not why not?

I would say cheap H7 bulbs are prone to failure and if you have glass hlamp lens they can explode and all of a sudden the cheap bulbs aint so cheap, so maybe do an ebay listing with different quality bulbs from bargain to named brands (also do 12v as well) even if you hardly make any money its get your name our there time.
Im not sure I would pursue the 24mth warranty on bulbs as hand on heart truck bulbs especially cheap headlamp ones just wont last that long.

Big concerns will have their suppliers sorted and getting in the door is close to impossible

6

Trickydick:
Pricing looks fine to me, are you on ebay? if not why not?

I would say cheap H7 bulbs are prone to failure and if you have glass hlamp lens they can explode and all of a sudden the cheap bulbs aint so cheap, so maybe do an ebay listing with different quality bulbs from bargain to named brands (also do 12v as well) even if you hardly make any money its get your name our there time.
Im not sure I would pursue the 24mth warranty on bulbs as hand on heart truck bulbs especially cheap headlamp ones just wont last that long.

Big concerns will have their suppliers sorted and getting in the door is close to impossible

My 24 month warranty is for LED products only, not for head lamp bulbs, otherwise they’d pretty much last a company a life time at my expense as I’d have to keep replacing them!
I have some 12v bulbs but I don’t push those, I’m focusing on 24v ones for now but will expand later.

As for the quality, I’ve tested the durability of these (and other) bulbs and I’m very happy with the quality of the ones I picked. They are UV protected too for both glass and plastic head lamps lenses.

I do have a facebook page, but I don’t actually have a facebook account, I really don’t want one. I do have an active Instagram account though.

As for eBay, their fees are extortionate. But the big issue is that I’m VAT registered as I mainly sell to businesses. Other sellers on eBay are not, so straight away I have to match their prices to be competitive, but I instantly give 20% to the VAT man. Then you have a 10% eBay fee and then the PayPal fee. It whittles it down to being hardly worth the time. I am on eBay though, just for getting the image out there and selling rear light units.

I actually thought about selling off the rear lamps and side markers, as they are pretty much replaced by call outs or by the lease holder/owner. I’m thinking that I could mainly stock just bulbs and amber strobe light products. But a very wide range of bulbs and amber strobe products. Consumables are expected to be purchased by the lease holder, so that could be the direction to stick to.

What do you think?

PS, sorry for the late reply, I just did a 6 on 2 off twice in a row o.o

7

I think one of the most important things is Self promotion & exposure.
You need to advertise your company somewhere somehow.
Do you have a website?
Do you have Linked In ( a lot of company owners have this) ■■
Facebook?, Snapchat?
You need to get your contact details out there.

Nothing wrong with prices BTW.

8

Social media needs to become your best friend as some others have already said…Linkedin, Snapchat, Facebook & all of the rest…use them to the max. You also need to do some homework and email as many transport firms as you can with a pdf of your offers they can look at/print off. Make your website as user-friendly as possible & deliver your orders as quickly as possible. Promise to get orders out within 24 hours and figure out how to make that happen. If mum is working on the firm get her to answer the phone and publish your number.

Long warranties - forget it, especially on bulbs LED or otherwise, reduce the warranties & the prices accordingly.

I used to run a business with a website and it brought us 80% of our work…websites & social media rule now…do not underestimate this.

Your products & prices look great!

Best of luck.

Scannyfanny.