Hows Buisness?

[Kitten Kong]

I agree with neuron, the headaches of warranties ie for a failed hard drive are tremendous, My suppliers now have come up with a handling fee of 10% for exchanges if the hardware goes faulty under warranty, I was thinking of adding a percentage aswell like say 5%

I'm probably going to go down in flames for this post.. but what the heck.

Firstly, who are your suppliers, who are charging a handling fee?. I would seriously consider changing my suppliers too.

Are you registered with them as a trader? If not, and as far as they are concerned, your a normal joe public, they CANNOT, afaiw, charge a handling fee for anything going faulty whilst under warranty.

If you are registered as a trader, then they can only do a handling fee, on any item which is returned for any reason other than being faulty.

The limit on warranty, for joe public, is for eg 12 months. As a trader it may be as little as 30 days. From this point, you yourself have to contact the manufacturer for resolution, should anything go wrong.

Check SOGA for more information regarding this.

But more to the point, you simply CANNOT add a handling fee of any %, yet alone another 5% onto your customer. It is not your clients fault a piece of hardware has gone faulty. You replace it, with your supplier, who then replaces it with their supplier.

If I was one of your clients, and you tried to pull this one on me, I would have you up in front of Trading Standards, with you in SERIOUS trouble, quicker, then you can start a PC.

For it is against the law. Plain and Simple. Please for your own piece of mind, check Sales of Goods Act, of for more information, there is a website, called The Consumer Action Group. Google it, check it out, and see for yourself.

 

[iptech]

I agree with neuron, the headaches of warranties ie for a failed hard drive are tremendous, My suppliers now have come up with a handling fee of 10% for exchanges if the hardware goes faulty under warranty, I was thinking of adding a percentage aswell like say 5%

Neuron what parts do you stock, you said just the basics, is that like CD Drives, Hard Disks and the like.

I dont stock anything either everything is ordered, I have PSU's, DVD Writers Memory and Hard Disks as I find these are the most common replacement parts.


The most common Component I replace are 2.5 SATA Laptop Hard Disks

I've never heard of a supplier charging a handling fee for warranty returns who is it you use? So your supplier charges 10% handling fee yet you're planning to charge only 5%, that doesn't sound like a good business plan to me unless your markup is 100%. Even then , you shouldn't have too many returns on hard disks, I find them very reliable these days, I have one return in the past five years and that was DOA. I've had a couple of customers complain that hard disks fitted have gone faulty but both times these were due to virus infections some weeks after the fitting, these were billed out as normal virus removal jobs.

As Cadishead says, it is illegal in the UK for anyone to charge for a warranty return, any direct costs incurred in returning/replacing a faulty item are the responsibility of the retailer so you should bear this in mind when setting your selling prices as costs will come straight off your bottom line.

 

[Jay85]

Well i dont know if Im alowed to name the supplier but they are a big UK supplier and yes I am registered with them they do not sell to the public,
and a big legitamate company not some dropshipper.

I DO NOT CHARGE MY CLIENTS HANDLING FEES, The supplier charges me a handling fee if I send back a defective item for exchange, so I pass this cost onto the customer, I make nothing out of it as I do feel its my responibility since I supplied the computer or whatever.

 

[iptech]

Well i dont know if Im alowed to name the supplier but they are a big UK supplier and yes I am registered with them they do not sell to the public,
and a big legitamate company not some dropshipper.

I DO NOT CHARGE MY CLIENTS HANDLING FEES, The supplier charges me a handling fee if I send back a defective item for exchange, so I pass this cost onto the customer, I make nothing out of it as I do feel its my responibility since I supplied the computer or whatever.

Yes don't bother to name them, let other techs here get ripped off as well. I didn't realise it was against the law to name your suppliers.

NAME THEM, I'm sure I or others here from the UK will have experience of them.

FWIW I've looked at the T&C of one of the main suppliers I use, KMS Components and they charge a 15% handling fee IF the item returned under warranty is not found to be faulty. That is typical, fair and reasonable IMHO.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Yes don't bother to name them, let other techs here get ripped off as well. I didn't realise it was against the law to name your suppliers.

NAME THEM, I'm sure I or others here from the UK will have experience of them.

FWIW I've looked at the T&C of one of the main suppliers I use, KMS Components and they charge a 15% handling fee IF the item returned under warranty is not found to be faulty. That is typical, fair and reasonable IMHO.

Which is normal. It is against the law, and sales of goods act, to charge a customer any handling fee, for a deemed faulty item.

This applies to your supplier (who ever they may be), and to YOU!. Irrespective of what ever your suppliers terms and conditions may be. They cannot beat the law of the land.