Would you pay the price ?

fearful wizard wrote:
I have been looking to replace the slide bolts and found this firm.
They are inexpensive, but postage is £4.95. Pete




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I broke a bed to side wall hinge last month and Ian (Riva) mailed two out to me in Norfolk. Because he is a real person and not a processing centre he can understand why someone might need a part posted to other than their bank card billing address.
Had to look up how much postage and packing he charged me it was £3.00
So looking at the bolts for sale for 2 bolts Ian would be about £3.00 more expensive for 4 £8.00
It's nice that so many of the Dandys parts are off the shelf and it's also nice that due to the collective wisdom of a forum that we are aware of more and more sources of bits and pieces.
Now Riva are not in the business of manufacturing any more, they do sales, repairs, maintenance and parts. You might argue therefore that Riva must do more to make parts available than a current manufacturer but if you have listened to the tales of woe from Pennine and other folding camper owners about a lack of availability of spares you realise how lucky we are. Often these owners are talking about units 5 years old and less not units 4 times that age or more.
Now I can understand someone spending £100.00 and whatever pounds less by having gas struts fitted in Stoke than by Ian but I have a question.

Would you always buy spares from the cheapest source possible or is there an amount of price difference where you would choose to buy from Ian in the hope that buying from him helps keep him trading thereby preserving a useful resource.
So would you:
Buy from the cheapest source.
Don't mind it costing £5 or 5% more from Riva
Don't mind it costing £10 or 10% more from Riva
Variable I wouldn't mind it costing more if I'd had technical help or support from Riva
Other

I await your opinions.

Good question Kevin,i dont mind ian charging more as he is running a business that doesn't have the buying power of B&Q ect and even at his prices he probably makes less profit per item than they do and i would like to see him stay open.
After saying that i would have to say each purchase would be decided individually the roof bar brackets and pole end hooks where bought from him to match the ones i have,could have made them at 25% of what i paid but on that occasion i wanted the real thing.I bought some new plastic vent covers from him to keep originality but they are different so that purchase may have well been the local diy shop.
The conclusion is i dont fit in one of your category choices sometimes regardless of price i would support riva sometimes not,but like you i find his common sense approach great.

mike

When we repaired Dylan's bed side walls we repaired the hinges we had as we couldn't find any the same.

We didn't think of Riva at the time. Then Mrs P found them on a link someone had put on for something else.

It is a case of like local Pubs, Shops and Post Offices "If you don't use them you may lose them".

We don't mind paying a little extra sometimes, at the end of the day we all have to make a living. So long as we are not getting totally ripped off.

Yep i have met ian, i drove up from lincoln to have a look at what he had for sale and to see if a dandy was for me.
I nearly bought a dart from him, it was about £6000 but was a little over my budget.
And the cheaper dandys were not for me, so i opted to buy privately.
If i wanted gas struts fitted, i think i would go to ian because nobody knows dandys better than him.
I also rang ian recently regarding altering my awning, and the lady told me they do not alter awnings anymore and said to contact TVS.
I emailed TVS to try and give them some business, but they couldn't be bothered to even reply, so not impressed.
Now for small items, it is suprising how much prices varie, and how much you can spend on smaller items restoring a dandy.
I have kept most of the receipts and it is suprising just how much it comes to.
I needed some shock cord recently, so i shopped around in the end

I bought 50 mtres of 6mm shock cord from Machine Mart for £23, a lot cheaper than buying just enough from elseswere, and i now have plenty to spare.
So i will not apologise for shopping around to try to find things cheaper.
I posted the link for the slide bolts on both dandy forums on the assumption that it might help other forum members which i didn't have to do. so i would like members comments please. Pete

At the moment lots of people are struggling so I appreciate the links to cheaper alternatives, it would depend on the job that wanted doing but most things including my new suspension has been done by ourselves. Jobs that are not beyond our capabilities we like to do ourselves and we save money along the way. As for the small items if I can purchase an alternative of the same quality that does the job for half the price then I will. I'm not going to apologise for what seems to me at least to be economically sound choices. Dandy's are ingenious and also very simple.

Take care of the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves as my gran used to say.

I wish Ian well and hope he stays around for a long time, we're lucky in the fact that we have some very handy people around us.

Excellent question - perhaps the thread would have more participation if it was split and given an appropriate title.

Dear Pete

Thanks very much for making your post.
If you think you have information that might help someone or has taken you time to find then it almost certainly will help someone.
It's not for me, or for anyone else to tell you where to buy your kit from. If I tried to do that then you would no doubt tell me what to do with myself.
If someone can afford to buy a Dandy from Riva then their means are above mine. I don't know what my thoughts are exactly on buying from Riva that was part of the reason for asking the question. Dandies are fantastically functional without much in the way of specialist trim so lots of bits are available from general hardware or trailer outlets. Other than the hinges I've bought a replacement pole from Riva and a few other bits and pieces when I picked that up. Given the sizing the pole was probably the one thing you might have difficulty buying elsewhere. I do think it's a fabulous resource him being there so therefore I'm quite happy to buy small bits and pieces from him: a) because he is an easy source for bits where I don't need a Paypal account, I don't need to worry where my bank card details are going. b) In emergency he will post to other than your bank card address (I don't know if this would depend on you having dealt with him before) c) He might be a bit more expensive but on small bits he's actually good value. If anyone finds any Dandy bits in B&Q I doubt they would be cheaper there (That company has an unbelievable mark up on small bits not several 100% but several 1,000%) Also several folding camper manufacturers can be punitive for parts if they can be bothered to stock them at all.
I do wonder if it's a futile exercise buying bits and bobs in the hope that keeps Riva afloat I presume they also need large repair and maintenance items along with sales and I'm not likely to be a party to those activities.

With regard to TVS I don't know if you've read my thoughts on TVS providing zipped sides on my Designer. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Again it's your business who you spend money with but TVS are useless at replying to emails. I have no idea if that is the failing of a member of staff or they have an overly active spam filter on the email? My point of view is it's no point biting off your nose to spite your face. What is to be lost in giving them a call?

Helen.

For me split the post if you want. I did take Pete's post off topic. Put a Poll in if you want to it tends to get replies and opinions.

Like most polls i cant vote as all the options would apply on different occasions,i have a history of supporting the small local guy,the net result is loads of things have cost me over the top and the small local business has still gone to the wall.
As i get nearer retirement so looking at a reduced income the more i think i have done my bit and i should save money where ever i can,the only answer i can give to the poll is i may be prepared to pay extra on some items.
mike

We bought our delta from Ian. I know we could have bought cheaper elsewhere, but we are not technical at all nor do we have the space to work in. For us paying more and knowing we can get any glitches sorted seems worth it. We picked our delta up and Ian spent time showing us how it operated and making sure we had everything we needed, he also posted the instructions on when I left them on his desk.
Judith

We had new bed boards and side boards and welding done on Minnie by Ian in January and were really grateful he was there as that level of work was beyond our capability. So we are happy to pay extra for his level of expertise.