Overclockers MUCH CHEAPER Than **ahem**

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I understand how people want free delivery, don`t we all, but its not always that easy.

Free carriage can and does make a huge dent in your profit. Having offered free carriage charges at our company for 12 years, and now being a shareholder, believe me I know.

I think free delivery once you have spent a certain amount is not asking too much. :) But its still a balancing act.

As for City Link, don`t kid yourself that there are better or worse couriers out there. In the twelve years we have been trading, we have used 8 different couriers, and found NONE to be perfect. UPS were about the best, but at the time, they were also nearly double the price of Nightfreight. Everybody who buys mail order WILL eventually encounter a delivery problem at some stage IMO. Smaller lorries with more parcels to try and keep costs down. Poorly paid staff with no motivation, sometimes working very long hours does not add up to a recipe for great service.

Home deliveries will always go wrong. From OcUK`s point of view, its about finding the balance between cost/reliability.

If they started offering free delivery on memory, how would they send it? Courier would wipe out any profit from the memory so thats no good. Post office would lose it, break it or steal it. And even if it was sent Special delivery, thats hardly cheap.

Also, when things go wrong, it can get very messy. You end up with a member of staff spending all day sorting out delivery issues. Then claims having to be raised for carrier damage, then the carrier disputing said damage and on it goes...............

Anybody complaining about carriage costs should try and send a set of speakers or a power supply or a monitor themselves.

If everyone suddenly got free carriage, prices would go up. It would be inevitable. You could argue that if free carriage was offered, more sales may come as a result. Fact is, they would have to, because the margins would be smaller, so suddenly, OcUK may need to sell 3 lots of memory with free carriage to make the same amount of money as now.(In theory. I have no idea of OcUK`s margins etc.)

I am just trying to add balance. Business is about the bottom line. End of.

OcUK seem to have a successfull business model atm.(From the outside looking in anyway:)). None of us know the ratio of failed/wrong/broken deliveries. From OcUK`s point of view, it may be very small & within a level which they deem acceptable.

We all have a choice. There are plenty of competitors out there. If you don`t like OcUK`s pricing, go somewhere else for your purchase. Its that simple

When I built may rig just before christmas, OcUK was the only place that had all the components I wanted. This meant i was able to order everything together, and only pay 1 carriage charge. £13 was not bad considering it included a PS and a P182 case.

BTW.
I personally have never had a problem with City Link. We also get deliveries at work from other companies who use City Link, without problems. Its the luck of the draw.
 
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I've also never had a problem with city link, ordered £900 worth of stuff, asked for pre-noon delivery, got it 11:30am, fully tracked on schedule the next day. Fine.

Also, delivery here is standard, it's not more expensive than anywhere else. The item prices may be, but the delivery isn't :). If i started moaning about £2.99 delivery on a £40 item, (which is what they're getting charged, they aren't charging you); i'd be an idiot to be honest.
 
Good points Countcussy; its perhaps the balance of the additional business you would gain against the cost of offering free delivery thats interesting.

This thread suggests a fair few more people would be ordering from OcUK if they had such a system (spend X to qualify for free shipping). Other competitors make this balance work too.
 
I would, and often have, buy more items to reach the free shipping mark if they had one.

I'm all about value for money, and if i can spend a bit more money, and get more goods, than spend less but spend a chunk on delivery i'd go for the former every time.

From a business point of view, the loss on the shipping is made up for in the profit on the other items.

I don't mind paying a value on shipping that is decently relative, but half of my goods cost going again to shipping? ouch
 
always remember buying some artic silver 5 for sumthing like £6.00 then p+p cost me a £7.00 lol its a joke. i dont why ocuk cnt offer standard delivery which will work out a lot less. Also orders say over £200 i think should have free P+P as that is what must have other companys are offering.
 
Countcussy said:
*snip*

BTW.
I personally have never had a problem with City Link. We also get deliveries at work from other companies who use City Link, without problems. Its the luck of the draw.
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No offence, but you're stating the obvious and looking at it from the business's point of view. Your points would be more valid were the competition not offering better carriage options.

As for City Link, they've got a 100% failure rate at my new address over the course of over a half-dozen deliveries. Do you really want to deny me the choice of an alternative carrier? The alternative is lose my custom.
 
I bought my large items (case + psu) elsewhere as they were slightly cheaper and I got free delivery. All the other components though were as cheap here if not cheaper and I had no problems.

City Link is good where I am.
 
Mud said:
No offence, but you're stating the obvious and looking at it from the business's point of view. Your points would be more valid were the competition not offering better carriage options.

As for City Link, they've got a 100% failure rate at my new address over the course of over a half-dozen deliveries. Do you really want to deny me the choice of an alternative carrier? The alternative is lose my custom.
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Non taken. :)

Obviously, you have had atrocious service from City Link, which is not good.

I was just trying to play devils advocate. Only OcUK can decide if its in their own interests and financially viable (For them) to offer alternative/free delivery. People power may well force them to go down that route, who knows. As i said, we have no figures to work with, so although you have had problems, you may be in the minority. Its easy to assume that because people come on here and complain, City Link are the worst delivery company ever. But this does not take into account the many people every day who recieve deliveries without problems that we don`t hear about.

More delivery options would indeed be more welcome, especially on smaller items. I was just pointing out that it is not a decision that can be taken lightly, and would have a great impact internally at OcUK. At the minute, in simple terms, City Link turn up, collect/drop off and go. With more delivery options comes more warehousing work. Making sure the right parcel goes with the right courier etc.. Juggling 2 or 3 couriers is not that easy!!

Obviously, none of these are the consumers problem. We just want the goods, as cheap as possible and as fast as possible in most cases.

Just so we know, I have no affiliation with OcUK whatsoever. I am just trying to balance the thread.
 
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Countcussy said:
Just so we know, I have no affiliation with OcUK whatsoever. I am just trying to balance the thread.
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I thought as much...it just doesn't pay to stay loyal to overclockers and it's hard to acknowledge any flaw on their part on these forums without fear of reprisal. I think they've got a fair few members brainwashed, and going against the grain and trying to help OcUK improve itself seems like risky business when you don't have freedom of speech on the forums.
 
If OCUK have what I want, then they usually get my custom. If not, then not.

I've always found City Link to be very quick and reliable, and actually WANT to you to receive your goods, unlike Parcelforce who'll stick a card through your door just for the fun of it.
 
i think we should get loyalty points with them for the amount one uses them per year, plus the amount they spend on avg per month.

so if someon buys a one of rig, or item, and then never comes again, or only comes twice again, then he/she would be offered relatively low points, but if someone is regularly buying new product when they are available, spending around £200-£400+ on small items over the year, they shoudl get more.
 
There really is no free P&P with anywhere.

You will find that in order to offer free P&P, they will increase the price of some of their components to reflect the cost incurred with the courier.

You may buy a GFX from a competitor that is exactly the same price than ocuk but someone else out there will buy a 20" Monitor that is £10 more than here. Thats where the cost of their courier is paid.

The mark up on computer components are very low. You need to knock a lot of the stuff out to make a good return. I remember a few years ago working for a component distribution company that used to buy the occasional stuff from ocuk and the margins were pretty carp.

Swings and roundabouts boys, swings and roundabouts :)
 
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Wiggins said:
There really is no free P&P with anywhere.

You will find that in order to offer free P&P, they will increase the price of some of their components to reflect the cost incurred with the courier.

You may buy a GFX from a competitor that is exactly the same price than ocuk but someone else out there will buy a 20" Monitor that is £10 more than here. Thats where the cost of their courier is paid.

The mark up on computer components are very low. You need to knock a lot of the stuff out to make a good return. I remember a few years ago working for a component distribution company that used to buy the occasional stuff from ocuk and the margins were pretty carp.

Swings and roundabouts boys, swings and roundabouts :)
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also i suppose it depends on how much space they have, as to how cheap ocuk or their competitors get the products at. as if they can only buy 100 graphics cards they will get it at a higher price than say if they bought 250? atleast thats how i imagined things would work :o:confused:
 
Free or 'discounted' delivery on orders over a certain amount would be great.
I've used such services from other etailers in the past and I do find that it entices me to spend more money.... often I'll end up adding on some little extras (fans, media etc) to boost the price up to the required level.

Something like £150 might be a good figure to target as OcUK would still be raking in the delivery money on the small orders.
 
The other week I needed some cheap components, I filled up my basket with the same gear on a few sites. The one I finally ordered cost me £52inc, but the ocuk basket cost me £80 for exactly the same components.

They need to offer free postage over £50, god knows how much business they are probably losing now because they dont offer this.
 
Well i love overclockers and i buy most of my computer hardware for here. Good prices and nice service and a wide selection of products. The only thing i don't like about overclockers is that they don't ship and bulky stuff outside U.K which is a pain since i am forced to spend my cash on other stores for thing like PSU's, cases, speakers and monitors :P
Would be nice of give the customer the option to select a different transporation service for bulky stuff for customers outside the U.K and i am pretty sure there quite a lot of them :)
 
I've been using Ocuk for years but for a while now the competition have better and more flexible delivery options so I use exactly four retailers to get my goods. As for packaging, my last two receipts were scrunched up horribly which didn't inspire confidence. Quality of goods packaging is the same for any of these four retailers - none are bad.
 
this is one thing i like. to be able to talk about the shop, giving constructive critisism and suggestions, w/o the thread being shut down. well done staff/ admin. we as customers should be able to talk to each other about our experiences. :)
 
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