Now call me odd if you want but is this not one of the most daft questions anybody has ever asked im not really sure what they are thinking.
We only sell brand new items here at Cast Fireplaces no seconds no returns just genuine 1st grade gallery products.
Anyway Mr Tiger stove man has been trawling thorugh ebay looking for a bargain stove and has come accross a listing where someone is selling a 12 month old Tiger stove and wants £250 for it now this really is a fair deal there is not a lot to go wrong with them and for someone wanting to take a chance on it its a good deal.
Now Mr Tiger then decides to Google search tiger stove doing a little research i presume in to how much they cost new and comes accross our website with the Tiger stove there for sale at £310 and then as he says ” i saw your stove for sale and at the top of the page it says seen it cheaper let us know”
Now technically he is right but what sort of person thinks to themselves these are brand new at £310 i bet they will price match a 12 month old second hand stove sold on ebay with no warranty offered.
MMMMMmmm now let me think for a short while errrmmmmm NO way would we possibly price match a new stove sold by us brand new in the crate for a second hand Tiger.
I wouldnt have minded if he had somehow come across a brand new Tiger stove sold by a company who offers warranty and is a genuine business id see what we could have done.
Needless to say i declined his kind offer of £250 for one of our shiny new stoves and im sure he didnt fully understand why we could not price match it anyway you live and learn im off for a lie down now im not sure i can take anymore today now
Will you Price match a Second Hand Tiger Stove
March 14th, 2010Why do you have so many Wooden Fireplaces
March 13th, 2010I took a phonecall at ten past nine this morning asking me why we have so many choices of wooden fireplaces and as the range and options are so big it is really making choosing which one we like best really hard.
I apologised for offering too much choice and she laughed saying its a womans right to be indecisive.
It turns out she had been looking for the past two days and had now narrowed it down to three options for which they were going to have
Jubilee and Oak Brompton
Henley and Oak Stourhead
Coronet and Oak Lincoln
After finding out that the shelf width was going to be a 54″ surround we could then rule out the Coronet and oak lincoln as this is best suited to a 48″ mantel i did mention the crown half polish its big brother to be told the polished band was to wide and was not what she wanted
Now the Henley and the Jubilee are two different inserts one decorative one plain and offer i think different looks and styles so to choose between these two is odd.
Anyway after further questions about wall colours and decor and what type of furniture was in the room a firm decison was suddenly made
Ill have the Jubilee and Oak Stourhead i just laughed out loud it wasnt even an option that had been discussed or considered but now when comparing the two together in side by side screen shots without telling me she had clicked on the Jubilee and Oak Stourhead and was now happy with what she was ordering.
I double checked to make sure she was happy with everything and now was so firm in her mind im not sure why we had been chatting for 22 minutes about fireplace options when all along the perfect answer had been sitting there.
So after one of the most challenging sales for quite a while we now have another happy customer looking forward to her delivery next sunday to Fareham and it just goes to show be patient and listen to what the customer wants and needs and make sure you have the options to offer thats why we really have so many choices in our wooden fireplaces section it makes choosing easy
Fully Stocked Fireplace Factory except Granite
March 12th, 2010Well over the past two days we have had well over 100 cast iron fireplaces delivered to us to replenish our stocks and this now means we have all our stock items in bulk again ready to supply all over the UK via our fantastic delivery service.
John from our suppliers has been unloading them using our forklift as i have been in the office they are in temporary accomadation in the Unit next too ours until i get chance next week to remove all empty crates and restack these.
The only thing we are now short of is 48″ Granite hearths for solid fuel use and with those not arriving till the 1st week of April we will run out early next week, again with the cold winter we have had, all the stocks accoss the major stockists have run dry.
As these come from China there is not alot that can be done to speed up the process so we will just have to offer alteranative hearths or people will have to wait untill they arrive.
We do have plenty of 54″ hearths so please keep ordering the larger fireplace packages we do and it wont be a problem.
One of the main reasons we have run out is the amount of Black Pembroke Fireplace packages for solid fuel use we have sold everyone goes with a 48″ granite hearth and these have been selling so fast we ran out of Pembrokes too but we now have those back in stock so we may have to swap to offering tiled hearths untill the granite returns to stock.
Anyway ill keep you all posted as to stock situation…
Oooh nearly forgot the Oak mantel with the Fancy moulding has been done today it will be ready monday so ill keep you posted about that too
Tiled Fireplace Collected then Visited Derbyshire
March 11th, 2010Im not sure what has been happening over the last couple of days but we have sold 7 tiled fireplace sets and 5 of them have been sold today via sales from our showroom and our website.
We do offer the full range of Tiled Inserts from gallery and they are all on our website but for some reason today it has gone mad on them.
Most have been sold with traditional style surrounds from the Bedford in Pine throught to the Flat Victorian Brompton Limestone.
Only 1 of these inserts was sold on its own and a Mrs Brown from Dalton in Furness who drove down today to view and collect it.
Dalton is a fair way from us but after finding out if we had the Northmoor Black in stock they decided to have an afternoon in the Derbyshire Countryside before heading off home.
As we are close to Matlock Bath and the Gateway to the Peak District quite a few of our customers tie a visit to us with day out some even go to Denby Pottery which is a mile from my house.We have even have customers visit us at Langley Mill and go to Ikea and the DH Lawrence centre at Eastwood which is close to us too.
We are lucky where we are situated with good road links and being in the centre of the Uk we have customers travel from miles to view and Collect our range of Fireplaces and Stoves.
So next time your after a fire why not pick up a map or use your satnav to find some local attraction you can visit whilst out his way and make a full day of it exploring Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire there really is so much to see not just our beautiful Fireplaces
Why do Customers choose other Fireplace Retailers
March 10th, 2010Today i had a phonecall at 8.30 am from a customer in Acomb York enquiring as to whether we had an Asquith Limestone mantel in stock and if they could come and collect one which luckily for them is a stock item.
To be honest we get asked regurlarly for limestone surrounds on there own as we find customer sometimes just replace the surround to give an existing fireplace a new lease of life so i enquired as to what dimensions the existing fire place was just to make sure it was suitable.
Over the years us asking our customers various things has saved a huge amount of costly mistakes or wrong ordered items etc.
So half way through i found out they had ordered a fireplace from someone known to us who is a regular bandit and name of this particular company has loads of bad reviews online and beleive it or not can only be contacted by email for faults etc.
I find this disgusting if you have a problem you want to speak to someone not email them its just very rude
It turns out the Limestone they ordered was smashed to pieces and they are refusing to supply new one as customer signed delivery notes as ok and they have no comeback on the haulage company.
After telling him what consumer rights he has he still wanted to order Limestone as he had fitter coming Thursday Morning.
As we are short staffed this week with Rhian being in Hospital for once we could not deliver it before then so he drove down and we unboxed the mantel and he took it away in his car.
Damages do happen more often than not when sending by pallet delivery Fireplaces are fragile items and need handling with care thats why we deliver all over the Uk ourselves and never entrust them to pallet delivery.
So please bear this in mind when ordering your fireplace and Stove who will it be delivered by how am i covered if its damaged and what are my rights
We offer a transparent simple service if your not happy tell us and w ewill work as hard as we can to sort it out not just say sorry its not our fault.
But anyway with our fantastic personal home delivery service we dont do damages we inspect all items prior to delivery so im confident everything will arrive in one piece and if it doesnt were here to sort it out.
Day off From Fireplace Factory
March 9th, 2010Today i have been off so apologies to anyone who tried to contact us regarding our Fireplaces or Stoves and i also apologise for all the late emails i sent yesterday late evening.
Rhian has been in Hospital today and is there for a few days yet before returning home so im afraid there is only me here at the office till shes fit and well again.
Thanks for everyones patience in me returning calls and emails and thanks to everyone who ordered online after listening to answerphone message saying we were closed.
I am back in the ofice and Factory tomorrow and will catch up with everything then so if you do have to wait a little longer than normal for an answer or price im not ignoring you im just working my way through a big long list but i will be back up to speed by the ned of Wednesday.
I am very proud of our Family Based company and what service we offer and the traditional customer values we have so we do not employ any other staff, we just work our way through it to make sure our customers get the correct advice from someone who knows what there talking about not some Office Man with no Fireplace experiance so please bear with me and i look forward to answering all your enquirys as fast as i can.
Fireplace Dimension Layout started to be added
March 8th, 2010When we swopped websites we lost all the dimension drawings and sizes that our customers use to decide which size fireplace and mantel they require and also what size opning dimesnions they require.
Our website has been without this for a few weeks as we have been designing new templates which offer the clearest information available for all our fireplaces.
These dimensions are to be found on any product screen and can be viewed by clicking on the Dimensions tab as shown below this will then take you on to another page where the diagrams will appear with all the relevant dimensions associated with each item
When you have clicked on that tab you will be presented with a screen that looks like this which as you can see contains details of the size of the Cast Iron Fireplace insert which is followed by the dimesnions of all the surrounds which are availble with this package (three in this case) and finally it shows you the opening dimesnions that are required in your chimney breast for this fireplace to be a perfect fit
I think we have this perfectly set out and im 100% sure our customers will appreciate all this info on hand and the fact it is so easy to understand.
Also im very pleased we have managed to add it on its own page as it looks far neater than it being on one page we have always done it like this even on our old website so our customers are used to using the info we offer in this way so it really makes sense to continue to make our website the simplest to use online and to offer our customers the most information in the best format online and to top it all off we still offer the best Service so why shop elsewhere
Coronet and Pine Bedford
March 7th, 2010Since our new website has gone live we seem to have had a little run on this fireplace package in both 42″ and 48″ mantel sizes but strangely enough most of them have been for solid fuel use.
I say strangely as the coronet does not have the widest opening for solid fuel use and is more suited to burning coal than wood due to the restricted opening width.
Dont get me wrong you can burn logs on this fireplace but something larger like the Jubilee or Henley etc is more useable as a solid fuel fireplace.
I do understand that a lot of our customers but them for solid fuel so they light them on a few occasions and do not rely on them as a main heat source.
Im sure the attraction of this fireplace is its simple polished band and the fact it can be used in a small timber surround of around 42″ which is perfect for even the smallest chimney breast.
We do offer a 48″ version to but dont tend to supply it in 54″ as the insert looks a little lost in a mantel opening width of 36″
So if you want too take advantage of this weeks hottest fireplace just click on the photo below and it will take you straight throught to the item with all the Fuel options and mantel sizes you could require and as with all our featured fireplaces it is in stock in all sizes,fuel options and mantel widths ready to be delivered or collected
Coronet and Pine Bedford
Space sorted for Fireplaces arriving into stock
March 6th, 2010As i said last week we have a huge amount of Cast iron fireplaces arriving to us next week and to be honest just in time too as we are out of Pembroke Black Fireplace and only have a few of the other items we stock left.
After such a busy week my job has been made easier in moving things around as alot of the crates we keep this items in are nearly empty which means we can remove them and replace crates with full ones and then just recrate all the oddments together.
So space will be made in the morning for the deliveries arriving Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week.
Im sure John from our suppliers will be sick of the Journey to Langley Mill by the end of the week, but i know he does appreciate our forklift and the amount of work we now do not have to do as anyone in the fireplace trade knows cast iron fireplaces are very heavy items.
We are also expecting a delivery of Jura stone mantels we have on order and i know Daz is busy this week making Oak Lincolns and Bedfords again just in time to replenish stocks to ensure our quick delivery service is kept up and running.
Right off to Stuarts to drop off a late order ive added to his van for a customer tomorrow (sunday) so they now have a stove to go with there Limestone Package and still will only pay 1 delivery charge saving them both money and time.
Thats why we keep so much in stock it makes us better than the rest
Busy Bees at Cast Fireplaces again
March 5th, 2010Another real hectic day at Cast Fireplaces there just seems to be no let up i have even gone without dinner today until 3.30pm not that it would do me any harm as i could do with losing weight.
It all started this morning with me going to Scunthorpe and Nottingham to deliver a couple of fireplaces our customers required in a hurry but thats part of our excellent service.
Anyway i got back to the office and Rhian gave me a pile of Website orders our new site had created so i rang them all back to confirm choices and to arrange delivery after this was done i was on my way to Chesterfield with a Tiger Plus stove and then on to Nottingham to collect two Fireplaces which are being delivered on Sunday.
Back to the Factory just in time to meet a customer from Birmingham who had come to view a Pembroke Full Polished Solid Fuel Package and that was promptly loaded by Me and Stuart who had just returned from Bristol and Gloucs run via all over the South West.
We had a quick chat as we loaded his van and then mine for this weekends run to Sunny London i got back home at 3.30 pm and was straight in the fridge hunting for food good job my wife went shopping yesterday it was packed with goodies.
Anyway back in the office raising delivery notes and invoices and yellow telephone notes posted everywhere with people to ring.
Rhain said the phone had not stopped and looking at all the paperwork im not sure how it all got done.
Im now sat here in my office writing this blog at 19.30 having completed all my jobs and after this is done im switching off for the Night.
Out with the kids in the Morning to The park with the dog so im not sat in front of my pc but the phone is transferred if you do want me.