Hi there happy valentines day to everyone just thought i would pop online and share with you something that has made me really smile today i have had an email from somebody asking if we can fit a fireplace if they purchase it from us so i enquired saying where are you re fitting and the reply came back Living Room.
Ha Ha Living room i thought are they trying to wind me up its not Aprils Fools day but i suppose thinking about it it makes sense they obviously require a fireplace in the living room.
After we had a laugh about it even our customer thought it was funny we found out they are in Keighley we said we can fit there no problem our local fitter who does alot of work for us we travel there and fit.
So all prices have been emailed and we hope to see if another of our great fireplaces will be finding itself a new home in somebodys dining room in Keighley and if not it certainly gave us a little smile and a laugh.
Right im off to wrap up a set of tiles i promised to send out to a customer to arrive before 9am Tuesday morning after he broke them showing his wife how they looked in the fireplace oh dear bet he has had ear ache after that.
Posts Tagged ‘Fireplace’
Funny Old World in The Fireplace Game
Sunday, February 14th, 2010We offer the Best Fireplace Delivery On or Offline
Tuesday, January 19th, 20105.30 AM this morning i was on the Road from Ripley in Derbyshire to Pudsey in Leeds for one of our legendary early morning delivery calls with a Firefox 5 Stove for a Customer who had ordered the day before asking if we could deliver very quickly as he needs to get it fitted this week.
As luck would have it we were going to Bridlington, Hull, Saltfleet, Wragby and Nottingham today so i told him the only way we could do it would be 7 AM Delivery which suited him fine as he was off to work at 8 so i dueley arrived early at 6.50 and unloaded it and then dissapeared into the thick Fog on my way to Bridlington.
On the way there i was thinking to myself how unique our delivery service is with its early morning calls, 1 hour timed delivery slots,weekend delivery to London and the South just to mention a few of the main points.
We do put a huge amount of effort into our delivery service making it the best to be found anywhere with all our products no matter how big taken into your home (not dumped outside or doorstep delivery) it really is unusual to find this level of service.
This i am sure is one of the main reasons and of course our prices is why many people order with Cast Fireplaces i can not think of any other company on or offline who comes anywhere near our service.
Yes it plays havoc with all our home lives especially the Sunday run which is not nice week in week out when others are out enjoying themselves on Saturdays but thats the service we have chosen to offer and we intend to continue with it.
So if you want to order a fireplace or Stove from a online company who offers better than High Street Service look no further than us here at Cast fireplaces
Buy an new Fireplace or Stove in the New Year
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009As 2009 finishes we all reflect on what the past year has brought us all and i must say with things in our personal lives im glad to see the back of it.
Workwise i dont think things could have gone any better i know times have been tough and money is short for people but we have come through this terrible turbulent times in a new factory which we are in the process of buying and our Fireplace stocks have grown hugely.
Yes profits are down slightly but being house orientated people have mothballed projects and a few developers we deal with have dissapeared.
It could be alot worse i know of 6 local fireplace companies finishing business this year and i have noticed a few website firms shut too.
So as we await the new year and get things ready for what are normally a few busy months for fireplaces and stoves as the weather starts to get really cold i look back and think yes we have done ok were all intact our company is well known and has respect in the trade and im sure that here at Castfireplaces we have a very exciting 2010 ahead of us.
Im really looking forward to getting back to work and making progress in our aim to be the best known company on the internet and the 1st choice for buying all your fireplace products and im sure with all our staffs help and in particular our customers help we can achieve some real big results this year.
1st day off and im back at Fireplace Factory
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009Well at the start of our Christmas holidays i have been to the factory this afternoon to wrap and send out a gas insert by Parcelforce to a customer in Cumbria who we bent over backwards for to get delivery to before christmas sending it on a courier who collected from us at 10pm at night just so they can have it fitted.
Now as it turns out the gas insert has a missing knob and a one of the matrix that holds the coals in place is broken too, we do not open all of our gas inserts before dispatch as i can honestly say this is only the second time this year something has been wrong with them so we trust our suppliers to check them.
Now we normally insist on having items returned to us before dispatching new replacement item (postage paid by us) as in the past we have had customers not return items when they have had their new one and this is very costly to us as they are £165 retail price.
Now for this customer we have sent replacement gas insert out as we felt it was unfair being so close to Christmas not to send gas insert as there is no way they can return and us dispatch new item in time so i really do hope the original gets sent back.
Now anyway they were not too pleased at it not being correct when the fitter had come to fit so please bear this in mind if you have a fitter booked please check over all the items so they are ready to fit when he comes, dont get me wrong damages are very rare but sometimes customers order the wrong tiles or order wrong size mantel and when the fitter is stood there all ready to fit it and its not right there is not much we can do that same day.
Anyway moan over we have sorted it out at our expense and hopefully it will arrive Christams eve and get fitted in time for the big day so back to my relaxing with family and im just starting to feel tired from yesterdays all day drinking with the Fireplace Lads.
We are running low on Lytton and Jubilee Fireplaces and Firefox 5 Stoves
Monday, December 7th, 2009Well what a mad month we are having and the gallery group the people whose range of Fireplaces and Stoves we stock are very busy too.
As always at this time of year we always seem to run short of certain items due to stock shortage us here at Castfireplaces are in a better position than most fireplace shops as we do hold large amounts of stock at our factory.
However this has not proved enough and again we have run out of Firefox 5 Stoves, we also only have 2 Lytton Highlighted fireplaces and 3 Jubilee fireplaces left till after Christmas infact the new year.
Gallery themselves also have none of these items till January so thats it really 1st come 1st served gets the last of thses items.
Im not 100% sure why they have run out im told it is down to order levels and they did not expect to move some many in the Credit crunch crisis.
Well that seems not have hit our trade too hard and as we have seen a large shift again to solid fuel stoves and fireplaces this seems to have carried on right through “Heating Season”
Last week we had hearth deliverys to replace all our sold stock and these arrived just in time as we were down to the last few in stock.
Still only two weeks to go till Party day with the Fireplace Lads looking forward to it again a full day boozing in my home town of Nottingham.
Anyway if we do run out completely of any fireplaces or stoves i will let you know and offer an alternative to the option you have chosen so fingers crossed it wont be too bad but at the rate there going we will be out of lyttons and Jubilees by the end of this week but what can i do about it they are on the way from China.
Firefox 5 Stoves are due to arrive tomorrow
Sunday, November 29th, 2009Hooray at last we are due to have another 12 Firefox 5 Stoves arrive on monday after having 4 delivered on Friday that we were not expecting, this allowed us to deliver two today to customers in London who were very pleased to get the stoves earlier than they and we expected.
Now we do have 12 coming into stock but we only have four left available to purchase as we have been taking pre orders of the Firefox 5 since we knew we would run short and we had presold the 12 we had allocated to us.
So these four are available and they are probably not going to be back in stock again untill early January after these have gone so if you are looking for a new multi fuel stove we do have stocks of all the others and do not expect to run out in the mad rush but you never know.
On another note it is again the last day of the month on ” Cyber Monday” and it again is time to feature some of the other items we sell on on our website that you might not be aware of its called our featured items section.
So keep your eyes out for these new posts and see what we have to offer
New Oak Fireplaces added to our website pages
Thursday, November 26th, 2009Today after delivering a load of fireplaces i have had a rest from altering prices on our new site and have added some of the new images we have for our new items in particular two oak mantels called the Cameron and the Cubley both are quite chunky and we have put them together as fireplace packages for use with solid fuel, gas and electric use.
When i look at these photos i cant help but think that they will become great sellers and we have created again some of the finest quality fireplace surrounds that are available on or offline.
As normal when we make an oak surround we only use solid american oak and finish them with a lovely finishing oil from Liberon which seals the fireplace surround and gives it a slight patina.
We find this finish is far superior to the Waxed look available from others and we believe you will then see the beauty of oak as how you were meant to see it in all its natural glory.
Anway theres not long to wait now untill you will be able to view these surrounds and purchase them via our website shop so please keep checking back for what is sure to be the best quality at the best price for all you solid oak fireplaces.
Alterations to all our prices on new fireplace website update
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Now Today i have tried to set aside the day to adjust the prices on our website so that the price increase we are having from Gallery Fireplaces is ready to go when the new updated pages go live.
Now with over 600 products online and we do have around another 100 to add it is proving very time consuming indeed to do this.
Although the system we are using is easier to alter than our current one (hence why prices are staying the same) it is still going to take an age to do i think today i have done about 50 in between answering the phone taking orders and arranging delivery runs for this week to what seems the whole of the UK.
With this in mind and it being the busiest time of year for us it is going to be one hell of a push if we are going to have site ready to go live in the first week of December, and to be honest im not going to rush it just for the sake of it so it will arrive before Christmas i hope.
Nothing seems to very easy in the world of time mangement and i do think sometimes i wish i had kept my mouth shut and just announced it when it was live but im very exciteable and like to tell people whats happening here and some of our customers do ask me things and i know they have been reading our blog even our suppliers read it. I suppose it is just a way of making our website more user friendly and interactive than others that and with a wealth of information available regarding Fireplaces and Stoves im sure people will find something interesting for them.
On another note i can not believe we are in the Last Week of November and we are already taking orders to ensure pre christams deliverys of some items which we are running short of will explain more tomorrow
People do read our Fireplace articles section
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009I have often wondered how many people are interested in what we do here at Castfireplaces and whether they do read our Articles section to find out information about the range of Fireplaces we stock.
Well we do have Google analytics set up on this website so we can see how many pages are being visited and exactly which page and this month so far we have had 330 people read our article section.
It is very time consuming writing an article every day and i was toying with the option of writing 2 or 3 times a week as i often find myself blooging away late at night when i should be relaxing.
Now when i started this section which now has 215 articles in it was easy to write the content as we had loads to write up about now i know i have to revisit certain subjects but i do think it is a good form of media to give our customers an insight into what we are doing and what we offer here at Castfireplaces so i will try and continue writing articles.
Most things we write about are relevant to our customers and with the new updated site ready to go live there is alot of features and things we need to show you and im so tempted to give you a quick glimpse of what we have on offer but i have resisited it and i must say i am very excited about it all being changed over it really is the most simple easy way to shop online im 100% sure we have got it right so there is not long to wait now i feel like im awaiting a grand opening i hope all our customers old and new will enjoy shopping online with us.
As with our normal practice you do not have to order online that is why we show our phone number everywhere we do like chatting to customers we are not one of those faceless unfriendly websites where you can not speak to anyone so if you do want a chat about a fireplace or stove ar any info you require pick up the phone it is always nice to hear from you.
Customer contacts us to supply Bolton Fireplace back after terrible service
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009So the ugly head of the fireplace company bandit raises its head again today as we were contacted this morning by a man in Manchester who had ordered a Bolton Fireplace from another company online somebody we are aware of and have heard numerous complaints from customers and have read bad feedback on various review sites about them.
They failed to deliver the cast iron back and this is what was emailed to me
“I’ve Bought A Gallery Bolton Cast Iron Fire From Another Retailer Who Has Failed To Deliver The Optional Back Which We Need In Order To Get It Fitted Before Christmas. Whilst I’m Fighting With The Other Retailer (who Won’t Return Calls) Is There Any Way I Might Be Able To Buy This Seperately From Yourselves Whilst I Try And Get A Refund From Them? If So, When Would You Be Able To Deliver To An Address In Manchester And For How Much?”
I replied by email straight away as i was sat at my pc working through delivery notes for Tomorrows trip to Norfolk and he repied saying
“Thanks for your quick response – not something I’ve been used to in
this debacle!
I’ll seriously have to consider doing this if I don’t get any response
from them by the end of this week as I have a whole front room to
decorate around the fire before Christmas so need it fitted sharpish.
Its a shame as the service we got at their showroom was excellent but
since then it’s all been downhill!”
Now this we hear all to often it is ok having a showroom and ideal for serving customers face to face but online retailing is a specialist business and not every one is good at cutomer service and responding to peoples needs and requirements and having the infrastructure to deal with any problems that arise.
Yes we do have a showroom but we are mainly online retail based and whilst we do have a good flow of people visiting our showroom most are local to us and come because they have found us online and wish to simply view products before purchase.
So please when choosing your new fireplace be carefull who you buy it from and there all some terrible companies online who just take your money and then deliver shoddy goods and have even worse customer service.
They know who they are and if you ask me i will tell you who they are but i do not think it is fair to name and shame them in our article section so if you do want to know just contact me