It is more than a little unfortunate, and almost certainly not unrelated, that ever since the fateful day of the Brexit vote we have been beset by cost increases from our suppliers. With only one or two exceptions, we have been on the wrong end of increases ranging from 7-8% up to as much as 15% – and in several cases we’ve had two double-digit increases in under eight months!
We are regularly looking at ways to reduce our costs, including consideration of different materials and different suppliers where we can avoid compromising on quality and reliability – and of course the increase in our volumes has helped to offset our overheads, which have increased a little this year following our move to larger premises more suitable to our goals.
Maybe we could allow our margins to slip further, drop quality and allow our products to stagnate, but we don’t think our customers would thank us for this in the long term. We’d much rather continue to invest in quality improvement, development of more new products/approvals, holding stocks to ensure fast availability for customer service, and of course our staff.
Therefore, from 1st December, we will be increasing our prices – as noted above, our growth has allowed us to absorb a significant portion of our suppliers’ increases and therefore we will be limiting the vast majority of our increases to around 5-6%*. ZONE GUARDIAN prices will not be changing.
Of course we know this is not ideal, and we will still offer efficiency discounts on larger orders, but we hope that our customers understand the necessity in order to allow us to continue to provide the high levels of quality, service and flexibility that we are proud to provide. We believe we still offer excellent value for money, and trust that our customers agree.
*Following a detailed review, we can confirm that in most cases the increase has been lower: around only 4% for most compressors and initiation boards, 5% on manual flow test assemblies, 6% on Alarm Valve Booster Pumps, and as promised ZONE GUARDIAN pricing has not altered. If you would like an updated list then please email us.