The danger of making a comment in the press is that no
matter how careful you or the publication are, it can be taken the wrong
way!
In a recent article in KBB Review I felt the need to comment
on the issue of manufacturers selling direct. Unfortunately, the heading
of the article was less than helpful, as the one thing I didn’t do, and never
would, is ‘slam retailers’. I therefore now think it’s only right to
clarify the points that I did raise.
The point I tried to make was to question what is
actually meant by ‘selling direct’. I assume that when retailers talk
about selling direct, and understandably object to, is a manufacturer competing
against them when they are selling a complete kitchen. This would be
totally unacceptable and is not a practice in which Quooker would ever
indulge.
Our whole business is based and planned around supporting
and growing this invaluable network.
When I spoke about selling direct, I was talking about
accessing the 25 million households in which no new kitchen purchase is
involved – in other words, the retrofit market.
As pointed out in the original article we encourage our
dealers to enter this retrofit market and back them with a supported free
fitting programme.
So I feel the need to make it clear that we are absolutely
committed to our dealer base.
We invest over £1m a year promoting the brand to consumers
for the benefit of our dealers and would never knowingly seek to compete with
them.
Hopefully this clears up any misunderstanding !
If you are a dealer and want to find out more about entering the retrofit market, please email us at info@quooker.co.uk for details of our supported free fitting programme.
If you are a dealer and want to find out more about entering the retrofit market, please email us at info@quooker.co.uk for details of our supported free fitting programme.
Stephen Johnson
MD Quooker UK
Visit www.quooker.co.uk
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