Kitchen Pricing
How does an independent compare to a national retailer on price and services?
Over the years we have had a few customers that have accused us of being "miles away" on a "like for like" quote with a national retailer which is why we did not get the job. I have never dug too deep into these claims and have never seen one of these quotes to compare what the customer perceived to be an identical quote... Until I was recently asked to look at someone else's installation and advise on what went wrong, by a customer that I had quoted to. Ultimately I couldn't help fixing their issues, I don’t sell the same cabinet products and they're really not comparable in quality or finishes to use to finish their installation, but it did get me a glimpse in to the paperwork the customer was presented with that made them believe they had a better deal elsewhere.
Firstly, the layout was good and similar to what I had presented, but they had to accept some large fillers that we would have been able to eliminate because we could make a cupboard to a special size to both maximise cupboard space and reduce the size of filler panels. They also had to have cabinets that didn't perfectly match the doors finish and then there was the quality of the hardware such as the drawer boxes and pull out mechanisms which appear to do the same things but will be the first things to fail when made as cheaply as possible.
Then there were the bigger and more obvious differences. I had quoted for Neff appliances, but this customer now had Matrix appliances. Their price had also gone up on the day the installation was due to start as they had unwittingly signed up for a dry fit, which means they are only installing the cabinetry. So the installer aborted the first day of installation to make arrangements for an electrician and plumber to sort out the changes that were needed for him to start, all at additional cost to the original quote which took what they ended up paying significantly closer to what I had originally quoted. I had included the required electrical and gas work, plumbing, plastering, flooring, and painting and decorating.
With this new insight into what a customer might consider to be a comparative quote and how that affects buying decisions I drew up a plan and a kitchen to send to Wren and Howdens to be able to get a real comparison and make sure the quotes were as close as possible to being equivalent as possible and here is what I have learned.
Method:
I drew up a kitchen layout as close to the most typical real kitchen I could think of, not some tiny selection of units, but a medium sized kitchen with a full set of appliances. I did not use any unusual sized units so that Wren and Howdens would both be able to supply the same size units. I used two corner units with kidney shaped corner mechanisms in and two drawer packs. I used top spec Neff appliances that are a kitchen specialist range of appliances so not available from appliance only retailers although it transpires that Wren do not have these available either so quoted on slightly down spec wider market models in their quotes. I also included supplied and fitted quartz worktops from a top spec manufacturer. Wren used their own brand quartz in their quote so being able to assess quality differences is tricky, I am not sure why they would have their own brand quartz and not use a brand with an already trusted brand image? It was also clear on the quote I sent exactly what makes and models of appliances, sinks and taps that were being used.
I adapted the layout for two different finishes as the two most popular ranges sold. A true handle-less kitchen and a shaker kitchen. The images above and below are of these kitchens.
These are my quotes for these kitchens:
Wren:
Wren provided two quotes for each kitchen, one in their Infinity range and the other in their Infinity plus range. There was not a whole lot to go on within the quotes or the brochure as to the exact differences between these ranges but the infinity plus range in the door finishes quoted is closer to our spec of cabinetry:
Below are the quotes for these kitchens.
So, the takeaway from this is as follows:
Handle-less:
The cabinetry on both options is cheaper, which is to be expected, by 41% on the lower spec Infinity range and by 16% on the Infinity plus. Where it gets interesting is that despite quoting slightly lower spec appliances, they were still 22% more expensive even after they price matched internet only appliance discount retailers.
The sink and tap are really tricky as they didn't disclose anything about what they quoted for, but on the cheaper quote it was 30% cheaper and on the more expensive (and the shaker quotes) it was 18% cheaper which is hard to understand unless they changed the spec between quotes or there was a special offer for the cheaper handle-less kitchen on sinks and taps?
Worktops were also 17% more expensive despite being off brand.
Installation was also 3% more expensive. There was also a further £1150 in savings from Neff on our quote meaning that on handle-less kitchens we were actually only 0.3% more expensive than their lower spec kitchen and 9.8% cheaper than their higher spec kitchen.
Shaker:
The cabinetry on both options is cheaper, which is to be expected, by 57% on the lower spec Infinity range and by 29% on the Infinity plus. Again, despite quoting slightly lower spec appliances they were still 22% more expensive even after they price matched internet only appliance discount retailers.
The sink and tap are again tricky as they did not disclose anything about what they quoted for, but it was 18% cheaper.
Worktops were also 8% more expensive despite being off brand.
Installation was also 0.5% more expensive. There was also a further £1150 in savings from Neff on our quote meaning that on shaker kitchens we were actually 13% more expensive than their lower spec kitchen and 0.5% more expensive than their higher spec kitchen.
The calculations are below:
As at time of publish, Howdens have failed to give a quote... We will update this blog when they do.
In conclusion it is surprising that we are so remarkably close in price.
In all aspects where we can inspect the differences, the competitor quoted for lower specification products but in the products where there is less ambiguity of the differences, they were actually more expensive despite still being lower spec.
Maybe the ambiguity leads customers to think the deal is better than it really is, especially when it comes to services. We are often asked to provide for a complete service to our customers which when I pushed for clarity this isn't included in our competitors initial quotes so of cause a quote excluding the electrics, plumbing, plastering, flooring, painting and decoration is going to look significantly cheaper when viewing just the bottom line.
Maybe the shear size of a national retailer gives people a feeling of security, but any retailer with a physical presence is going to want to make sure they keep their customers happy and when the owner is directly involved there is more at stake for them. Also the size of MFI didn't protect their customers from their collapse.
I was not surprised by the cost difference in the cabinets when I compered the quality differences, if anything I was expecting them to be even cheaper. I was very pleasantly surprised at how competitive we were overall especially when I know that independent kitchen specialists' really pride themselves in providing the full, project managed experience, I have many friends in the industry that operate this way just like ourselves and from a consumers point of view having the peace of mind that the people dealing with such a complex installation project are taking it all personally and taking care of every aspect of the installation must be worth a few extra quid?
