It's official kitchen independents are the best

I have just read this weeks KBB news update regarding the WHICH? report finding that kitchen independents are the best to buy from, thanks to Graham for publishing these findings.

None of the findings in the report come as any surprise to me and probably many many others.

The fact that some retailers declined to offer their assistance for the report is indicative of the major players attitude not only to their most important customers but to the industry as a whole, this is another reason why an individual kitchen industry body would not work.

My opinion on the retailers who did fail to assist is this: Firstly the company that tells us to "To ask your M***N designer", they claim to be a bespoke service, this is factually untrue you only have to look up the definition of the word 'Bespoke' and this will tell you what it really means, I think what they really meant to say was they did not want to reveal their prices knowing they would be published in the Which? magazine and then the "unsuspecting" public will find out their true worth. It is well known that you get one of their 'designers' round to your house and they sit for several hours trying to persuade you to buy their kitchen at the most ridiculous price they could come up with, then when you say no to that price they phone their boss and hey presto the price comes down a bit, you say no again and the price comes down again thus the 'designer'
only gets their expenses and call out fee paid, I know this is true because an ex colleague of mine worked for them, so no wonder they did not want to tell us their prices because they did not know which one to show us, the sky high one or the one they hope not to sell at.

One of the other companies who did not assist was the joinery company that only deals with the trade, again the price list they have is a magic price list that reveals only the true price once the tradesperson has negotiated a discount from them, they also say they only sell to the trade again I know this is not strictly true because I have had retail customers who have been their and purchased a kitchen from them. Also what happens when an unsuspecting member of the public has their tradesperson buy a kitchen for them the tradesperson gets after negotiation  the full 70% discount and a lot of the time tells the customer "I got you a massive 50% discount" thus keeping the difference and then also charging the customer to fit it as well. As with the first company I know this to be true because one of my ex colleagues was a manager at one of their stores and he told me what happens because he wanted me to open an account with them.

The third company that declined to assist was the company who says 'It has got our name on it'. Currently this company is probably the most transparent of the three but probably did not want to assist because they are out of sale period and their kitchens are selling at full price, although they did say they where having 'imminent range changes', this makes no difference to the prices that are available today but at least they do sell them at full price before they put them back on sale again, even then their sale prices can be quite pricey,
How do I know this well I worked for them for several years and they have had two large price increases on the before sale prices in the past 6 months.

So to summarise the general public are being led down a blind alley in the dark with no torch or guide and from what the report says they will continue to do so because potential customers still go to the major players first, this is because they either think they are getting a bargain or they think that because these companies are big that they will be safe with the bigger company, all's that I can say to that is MFI

Thanks

Russell