kwik fit rip off!

[THE_Liam]

High street prices.

Go and get a phone contract from EE / 3 / O2 on the street.

Then have a look on MoneySupermarket and realise you're being a mug.

Kwik Fit is no different. The retail price on a catalytic converter won't be cheap. The rest of it will be 'cheaper' but the convenience of having several hundred Kwik Fit units open all-year-round is what contributes to the cost. Go in with your eyes open and they are rip-off merchants. To the man on the street, they are a reuptable garage, where they can turn up and have their car 'made better' again.

I don't have a massive problem with Kwik Fit, but then I'm a salesman, and up-selling is what you do to increase your margin. And it's all about margin. So if you can take advantage of someone for your own personal gain without remorse then so what? Intelligent people (like you and I) will never be taken advantage of. Screw the man on the street, if he's too bloody thick and has deep enough pockets then its' his own lookout.

The way you moaners go on about it suggests that you think they should sell parts at 'eBay prices' and charge 'mates rates' for labour, to everyone. That, my friends, is why you aren't working in management roles!

(harsh, but true!)

Ok, few points that need to be made here. I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm in management, and I'm sat here having a good old laugh at "That, my friends, is why you aren't working in management roles! (harsh, but true)" Get over yourself lad, you aren't Don Draper. You literally couldn't come across any more patronising.

First, charging someone more than cost price is called mark-up, not up-selling. Up-selling is recommending and promoting a product of a higher value. Mark-up is adding your profit and costs onto the product cost as the retailer. What Kwik-Fit do is add a large mark-up which they can do due to the perceived brand value of Kwik-Fit (no, I can't understand how they've got that either).

Secondly, I have seen your sales model in action before, and it isn't sustainable. I hope you don't rely on return business because here's the thing, at some point people look to cut costs, and if they find out they're being charged a lot more than they have to they'll go elsewhere, and (rightly or wrongly) badmouth the company.

Thirdly, no-one is saying Kwik-Fit should charge eBay prices, they're just using that as an example.

Anyway, back to KF. What they do isn't illegal, but it obviously works for them because they are bloody everywhere. However, it does mean that both prices and the general poor standard of workmanship that they are known to provide means that I wouldn't EVER take my car there unless I was literally stranded without tools, and even then I'd be looking over their shoulder and haggling.