I need to replace one of the filters over the pump in the bottom of my
dishwasher (and of course it's only sold as part of a set).

The Bosch website quoted £27 (including postage, handling and VAT),
but I thought I'd rather give the business to my local appliance
dealer (an official Bosch agent) for around the same price. I was
surprised when he quoted £40.50 (including VAT) for the same set!

I thought manufacturers sold spares at a discount to their own dealers
so they could sell them on at the same price. Is this kind of
discrepancy normal these days?

Adam Funk wrote:
I need to replace one of the filters over the pump in the bottom of my
dishwasher (and of course it's only sold as part of a set).

The Bosch website quoted £27 (including postage, handling and VAT),
but I thought I'd rather give the business to my local appliance
dealer (an official Bosch agent) for around the same price. I was
surprised when he quoted £40.50 (including VAT) for the same set!

I thought manufacturers sold spares at a discount to their own dealers
so they could sell them on at the same price. Is this kind of
discrepancy normal these days?

He's just quoting the Bosch price plus 50% for his efforts.

On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:42:27 +0000, Adam Funk wrote:

I need to replace one of the filters over the pump in the bottom of my
dishwasher (and of course it's only sold as part of a set).

The Bosch website quoted £27 (including postage, handling and VAT), but
I thought I'd rather give the business to my local appliance dealer (an
official Bosch agent) for around the same price. I was surprised when
he quoted £40.50 (including VAT) for the same set!

I thought manufacturers sold spares at a discount to their own dealers
so they could sell them on at the same price. Is this kind of
discrepancy normal these days?

When it comes to spare parts the situation is /much/ better than a few
years ago. Local spares shops have only one thing of advantage over an
net shop, namely they have them for immediate collection, that is worth a
premium and some landlords,tenants or customers /might/ be prepared to
pay the extra to get the appliance back in order sooner.

If the shop has to order it then you might as well do it yourself, online
spares shops are getting better all the while. More info, more pictures,
more diagrams. Often the price is high but the alternative a new
appliance...

Often you can find the spare part at one online shop find out more about
it (spec, numbers, picture etc.) and then search with greater confidence
for the best online deal.




--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html
Choosing a Boiler FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html

On 2008-03-07, Ed Sirett wrote:

I thought manufacturers sold spares at a discount to their own dealers
so they could sell them on at the same price. Is this kind of
discrepancy normal these days?

When it comes to spare parts the situation is /much/ better than a few
years ago. Local spares shops have only one thing of advantage over an
net shop, namely they have them for immediate collection, that is worth a
premium and some landlords,tenants or customers /might/ be prepared to
pay the extra to get the appliance back in order sooner.

It would have taken a few days for the shop to get it --- possibly not
as long as I'll have to wait for it from Bosch, but it's not so urgent
(the filter needs replacing soon, but not immediately).

On 2008-03-07, Adam Funk wrote:

On 2008-03-07, Ed Sirett wrote:

I thought manufacturers sold spares at a discount to their own dealers
so they could sell them on at the same price. Is this kind of
discrepancy normal these days?

When it comes to spare parts the situation is /much/ better than a few
years ago. Local spares shops have only one thing of advantage over an
net shop, namely they have them for immediate collection, that is worth a
premium and some landlords,tenants or customers /might/ be prepared to
pay the extra to get the appliance back in order sooner.

It would have taken a few days for the shop to get it --- possibly not
as long as I'll have to wait for it from Bosch, but it's not so urgent
(the filter needs replacing soon, but not immediately).

However, I ordered it on Thursday and it arrived on Saturday.

(Normally I'd grumble about the dishonest practice of charging your
credit card at the time of order rather than shipment, but those two
seem to have been on the same day in this case.)

On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:02:52 +0000, Adam Funk put finger to keyboard
and typed:

On 2008-03-07, Adam Funk wrote:

On 2008-03-07, Ed Sirett wrote:

I thought manufacturers sold spares at a discount to their own dealers
so they could sell them on at the same price. Is this kind of
discrepancy normal these days?

When it comes to spare parts the situation is /much/ better than a few
years ago. Local spares shops have only one thing of advantage over an
net shop, namely they have them for immediate collection, that is worth a
premium and some landlords,tenants or customers /might/ be prepared to
pay the extra to get the appliance back in order sooner.

It would have taken a few days for the shop to get it --- possibly not
as long as I'll have to wait for it from Bosch, but it's not so urgent
(the filter needs replacing soon, but not immediately).

However, I ordered it on Thursday and it arrived on Saturday.

(Normally I'd grumble about the dishonest practice of charging your
credit card at the time of order rather than shipment, but those two
seem to have been on the same day in this case.)

Your card is always[1] charged[2] at the time of order rather than
shipment. It's just that vendors can make the date of the payment
appear on your statement as the date of shipment rather than purchase,
and this is often misleadingly presented as being a charge at the time
of shipment rather than purchase.

[1] Unless you've given a continuous charge authority, but that's far,
far worse than paying up front!

[1] Strictly speaking, the money is "reserved" rather than charged at
the time of order, and then "captured" later when the product is
shipped. But the effect to you is the same as if the charge appeared
on your statement at the time of order, as once it's reserved you
can't spend it on anything else - it's effectively lowering your
credit limit by the value of the order for the period of time in
between placing the order and the charge appearing on your statement.

Mark
--
http://www.BritishSurnames.co.uk - What does your surname say about you?
"I believe in the kingdom come, then all the colours will bleed into one"

On 2008-03-09, Mark Goodge wrote:

(Normally I'd grumble about the dishonest practice of charging your
credit card at the time of order rather than shipment, but those two
seem to have been on the same day in this case.)

Your card is always[1] charged[2] at the time of order rather than
shipment. It's just that vendors can make the date of the payment
appear on your statement as the date of shipment rather than purchase,
and this is often misleadingly presented as being a charge at the time
of shipment rather than purchase.

[1] Unless you've given a continuous charge authority, but that's far,
far worse than paying up front!

[1] Strictly speaking, the money is "reserved" rather than charged at
the time of order, and then "captured" later when the product is
shipped. But the effect to you is the same as if the charge appeared
on your statement at the time of order, as once it's reserved you
can't spend it on anything else - it's effectively lowering your
credit limit by the value of the order for the period of time in
between placing the order and the charge appearing on your statement.

I think it's entirely reasonable for them to _reserve_ the money at
the time of order, and (since I've never been close to my credit
limit) it doesn't affect me.

I object strongly when the supplier completes the charge, it clears a
billing cycle, and I have to pay the credit card company before the
supplier even bothers to ship the part. A few years ago I had to
order a knob for my cooker (plus an exhorbitant "handling" charge) and
it arrived over a month after I had really paid (i.e. from my current
account to the CC issuer) for it. That's dishonest.

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:27:09 +0000, Adam Funk put finger to keyboard
and typed:

On 2008-03-09, Mark Goodge wrote:

[1] Strictly speaking, the money is "reserved" rather than charged at
the time of order, and then "captured" later when the product is
shipped. But the effect to you is the same as if the charge appeared
on your statement at the time of order, as once it's reserved you
can't spend it on anything else - it's effectively lowering your
credit limit by the value of the order for the period of time in
between placing the order and the charge appearing on your statement.

I think it's entirely reasonable for them to _reserve_ the money at
the time of order, and (since I've never been close to my credit
limit) it doesn't affect me.

I object strongly when the supplier completes the charge, it clears a
billing cycle, and I have to pay the credit card company before the
supplier even bothers to ship the part. A few years ago I had to
order a knob for my cooker (plus an exhorbitant "handling" charge) and
it arrived over a month after I had really paid (i.e. from my current
account to the CC issuer) for it. That's dishonest.

That's a separate issue though. The vendor can't reserve a payment for
that long (the actual time depends on the payment system provider, but
typically the maximum is no more than a week). With a lengthy lead
time, the vendor has three options:

1. Store your card details and process the payment when they're ready
to dispatch the goods.

2. Get you to authorise a CCA so that they can charge you when they
want to.

3. Take the payment at the time of order.

The first of these is only legitimately possible if the vendor has the
right security procedures in place in order to be able to store credit
card details securely. Otherwise, it's not only unwise and potentially
unsafe but also places them in breach of their agreement with the card
companies. Unless they have the ability to store your details securely
and have the agreement of the card companies to do so, then offering
to defer the charge until time of dispatch is misleading at best and
possibly close to fraudulent if anything does go wrong. The second is
fine for the vendor, but, if not presented correctly to you, is
equally misleading and, in any case, many people are (rightly) wary of
CCAs as it can be almost impossible to cancel one or get a refund if
it all goes pearshaped. So, in practical terms, the final option -
taking payment at time of order - is often the most sensible course of
action.

The underlying problem is that electronic card processing systems were
not designed with deferred payment in mind. Cards are supposed to be
an alternative to cash, and when you pay cash on order you always pay
up front no matter how long you wait for delivery. And, for
over-the-counter payments, that's how cards are, indeed, processed -
the payment is charged at time of purchase, and everyone is happy with
that. But, for distance selling, expectations are different. People
expect card payments to work like a cheque, which the vendor can hold
for several months before banking it. Prior to the mass adoption of
the Internet, vendors usually handled that by simply keeping a
physical record of card details and then keying them in to the
terminal at the appropriate time. It was low-tech, but it was
reasonably secure - short of a break-in at the shop, the card details
were unlikely to go astray. Online, though, it's a different matter -
a system which takes card payments over the Internet is a prime target
for those with nefarious intent. So the card companies clamped down on
the practice of vendors storing card details, and insisted that,
unless acceptable security was in place, all card payments had to be
processed at the point of order and the vendor was not permitted to
store details at all. But that creates a disconnect with customers'
expectations that their card will not be charged until the point of
dispatch, and so vendors looked around for a solution.

For big companies, like Amazon, which can afford the necessary
security, it isn't a problem - they can store card details and
therefore really can take payment at the point of dispatch. (Although
it's still worth considering the risks involved. It's easy to imagine
how much it would damage Amazon's reputation if any card details ever
did leak from their systems.) Smaller vendors, though, don't usually
have that option (and, in this context, "smaller" includes any
organisation that doesn't do a lot of online sales direct to
consumers, even if in other respects they are a major company). The
usual workaround for them is to use the "deferred capture" function to
give the impression of a deferred charge. But that's not what deferred
capture was intended for, and, as I've already mentioned, it has a
fairly short time limit. It works well enough most of the time, but
"well enough" and "most of the time" aren't reliable enough to avoid
creating problems, so it's often simpler and more transparent to just
take the whole payment at the time of order. it may not be what the
customer expects, but it is at least entirely honest with them and the
most reliable and secure way of handling the payment.

In case you're wondering, deferred capture was originally intended to
benefit the vendor, not the customer. The problem with online sales is
that you get a significant number of cancellations, either in between
order and dispatch or as a DSR return shortly after dispatch. All of
these require you to refund the card payment, and, as a refund is a
transaction, it results in a transaction fee. Since there was a
transaction fee on the payment in the first place, this means that a
cancelled or returned order costs the vendor two transaction fees -
and without any income on the order. It doesn't take many such
instances for it to be a significant overhead. Deferred capture was
devised by the card companies to offer a solution to this - instead of
the money being taken at the point of order, it's simply "reserved" at
the point of order and then subsequently "captured" (ie, transferred
to the vendor's account) at a later date. The transaction fee is
charged to the vendor at the point of capture, not reservation, which
means that if the order is cancelled before the payment is captured
then the capture can be cancelled and no transaction fee will be
charged. Because the charge is invisible to the customer until the
point of capture, many vendors started to utilise this by presenting
it to the customer as a deferred *payment*, as if they were not
actually placing a charge on the customer's card until the point of
dispatch.

This is all well and good, but, because reservation involves making an
invisible debit against the customer's card (which later becomes
visible at the point of capture), there is a fairly short time limit
on how long the payment can be reserved - otherwise a customer who
does a lot of online shopping could easily find themselves in a
situation where there is a huge discrepancy between what their credit
limit appears to be and what it actually is, and that in turn could
cause them to accidentally breach their limit and incur charges. Using
deferred capture as a method of appearing to delay payment is really
just a fudge, and one which can often create more problems than it
solves.

Mark
--
http://www.BritishSurnames.co.uk - What does your surname say about you?
"All I want is to find an easier way to get out of our little heads"

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:58:01 +0000, Mark Goodge
wrote:

For big companies, like Amazon, which can afford the necessary
security, it isn't a problem - they can store card details and
therefore really can take payment at the point of dispatch. (Although
it's still worth considering the risks involved. It's easy to imagine
how much it would damage Amazon's reputation if any card details ever
did leak from their systems.)

This raises an interesting point. AFAIK companies are not obliged to
reveal fraud to the public so would "we" find out if card details were
leaked?

A couple of years ago a credit card of mine was used fraudulently. As
I had only used it four times the source of the fraudster should be
easy to find. I contacted all four companies (one of them was Amazon).
Only Amazon replied at all and with a boilerplate text, basically
saying it couldn't be them. No-one seemed interested in catching the
criminal(s).

Since I did not lose out finacially I did not pursue the matter, but I
am surprised at the attitude of everyone involved.

M.

On 2008-03-10, Mark Goodge wrote:

That's a separate issue though. The vendor can't reserve a payment for
that long (the actual time depends on the payment system provider, but
typically the maximum is no more than a week). With a lengthy lead
time, the vendor has three options:

[Thanks for the (snipped here) explanations --- you have a lot of
knowledge in this area!]

In case you're wondering, deferred capture was originally intended to
benefit the vendor, not the customer.

I had thought it was designed for things like car hire, so the
supplier can "reserve" some money in place of taking a deposit. Is
that a side effect of the deferred capture system or is it a different
process?


....
This is all well and good, but, because reservation involves making an
invisible debit against the customer's card (which later becomes
visible at the point of capture), there is a fairly short time limit
on how long the payment can be reserved - otherwise a customer who
does a lot of online shopping could easily find themselves in a
situation where there is a huge discrepancy between what their credit
limit appears to be and what it actually is, and that in turn could
cause them to accidentally breach their limit and incur charges. Using
deferred capture as a method of appearing to delay payment is really
just a fudge, and one which can often create more problems than it
solves.

My credit limit has always been higher than I really need, but it
could be a problem for many people. Mainly I just very strongly
resent paying a business well in advance (unless something is
custom-made, of course).

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:28:49 +0000, Adam Funk put finger to keyboard
and typed:

On 2008-03-10, Mark Goodge wrote:

That's a separate issue though. The vendor can't reserve a payment for
that long (the actual time depends on the payment system provider, but
typically the maximum is no more than a week). With a lengthy lead
time, the vendor has three options:

[Thanks for the (snipped here) explanations --- you have a lot of
knowledge in this area!]

In case you're wondering, deferred capture was originally intended to
benefit the vendor, not the customer.

I had thought it was designed for things like car hire, so the
supplier can "reserve" some money in place of taking a deposit. Is
that a side effect of the deferred capture system or is it a different
process?

That's a different process, because the reservation in this case has
to last at least the length of the hire period - and that can often be
longer than the maximum deferred capture period. There's a separate
facility for this, therefore, which requires a different kind of
agreement with the card companies or the card handling provider. The
key difference is that the reservation can last longer in this case
because there is an explicit contract agreed to by the customer which
permits it to last longer, and the reservation period is directly
linked to the period of the rental contract. There is also a special
facility for a rental company to charge additional fees to the card
after the end of the hire period (eg, to cover things like refuelling
or damage), which, again, requires a special contract with the card
companies as well as being explicitly agreed to by the customer - it's
not a continuous charge authority, since it isn't ongoing and
unlimited, but it is authority for more than just a single payment.
But I don't really know any detail about how it all works, as I've
never worked for that type of business and never written the software
to handle that type of payment.

Mark
--
Stuff, some of it good, at http://www.good-stuff.co.uk
"I wanna spend all your money"

On 2008-03-11, Mark Goodge wrote:

In case you're wondering, deferred capture was originally intended to
benefit the vendor, not the customer.

I had thought it was designed for things like car hire, so the
supplier can "reserve" some money in place of taking a deposit. Is
that a side effect of the deferred capture system or is it a different
process?

That's a different process, because the reservation in this case has
to last at least the length of the hire period - and that can often be
longer than the maximum deferred capture period. There's a separate
facility for this, therefore, which requires a different kind of
agreement with the card companies or the card handling provider.
....


Interesting, thanks.