Jump to content

Ely Boat Chandlers gone down!


Markinaboat

Featured Posts

4 minutes ago, Markinaboat said:

Was looking at some pricing and this popped up when I visisted EBC's site:

 

https://www.elyboatchandlers.com/

 

 

Its probably due to Brexit uncertainty - or, it could because we are all now primarily buying 'on-line' and using Chandleries only for 'emergency breakdown parts'.

 

As several local 'village stores' have said "use us or lose us" and many, many of them have been lost.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No more than a month ago I ordered, 2 water pumps, 1 pump repair kit & 2 tins of blacking.  Message sent to me, only one water pump, repair kit & 1 tin of blacking, I emailed back asking when stock was likely to be available, response?.......no response.

An order of around £300 not worth chasing up.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 18/06/2019 at 20:04, NB Esk said:

No more than a month ago I ordered, 2 water pumps, 1 pump repair kit & 2 tins of blacking.  Message sent to me, only one water pump, repair kit & 1 tin of blacking, I emailed back asking when stock was likely to be available, response?.......no response.

An order of around £300 not worth chasing up.

 

 

No more than a month ago they were already in serious trouble, and probably knew the end was nigh, so performance in the month before administration isn’t really a fair representation of what went before.

 

I bought my Waeco fridge from them a few years ago. Found them online, price must have been competitive, ordering was easy, delivery fine, and fridge is great. Thereafter they became a place I looked if considering something, but haven’t bought much of their type of stuff recently.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Oldman said:

They were very helpful and competitive when I was fitting out my narrowboat. It will be a sad loss.

 

This is of course, the REASON they went under.

 

It is easy to give stuff away. Not so easy to trade at sustainable profit margin without being accused of profiteering (e.g. "Midland Swindlers"). 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sad to see demise of EBC was told locally that father & son business, father retired son ran business, not as business minded as father so goodbye EBC.[this is local gossip] will be missed locally as not much in the way of boating outlets in these parts. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, br4k3s said:

Sad to see demise of EBC was told locally that father & son business, father retired son ran business, not as business minded as father so goodbye EBC.[this is local gossip] will be missed locally as not much in the way of boating outlets in these parts. 

Nearest place will be Jone's at St Ives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tough times on the cut. How shall we put it..... it’s hard to be competitive and yet financially sustainable. As the old saying goes “you can please all the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time”.

 

Have a look at “long-tail” market theory, particularly in conjunction with the rise of eBay and Amazon. Ultimately people want unlimited choice, instant availability and the lowest price, that simply isn’t possible

on all fronts.

 

I expect that they tried their best but like everyone else reserve the right to do something else with their lives if the returns were no longer proportionate to the effort or personal sacrifice involved in running a small independent business.

Edited by Oscar
Error
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Businesses rely on repeat customers, and also good word of mouth. If you do not have satisfied customers they will tell others not to use the business. I personally purchased  6 leisure batteries from EBC then headed off down south to Brtistol, the new battery bank that was connected to my sterling alternator to battery charger could be charged to full and the next day it would be flat even with the master switch off, it turned out to be one of the batteries that was no good and the battery bank worked fine once this faulty battery was removed. but it took  months to realise the problem. I spoke to EBC about the problem before it was diagnosed but they just kept telling me to pay for an electrician to come and fix my faulty wiring. You can see the comments in the google maps reviews that i made as i got fed up with arguing with the faceless man. there is no wonder the company went under. No company will ever close down if it is making a profit, all business will close down once they are making a loss. on another occasion i required a sterling part that was in the window so inquired about the price, it was 190 pounds but on the sterling website it could be purchased with next day delivery for 99 pounds. Surely if they are going to be sellers of starling products they should be the same price as from sterling directly,

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see the comment above about the father son thing, it was Keith and Carole who used to run the business and built it up. It was Richard Alderton who was rude to everyone and couldnt communicate with people on an equal level, he used to think he was better than everybody else who went into the shop as he was a spoilt brat as a child at school and never really grew up. There is no real surprise he just ran the business into the ground. My wife saw him in McDonalds flipping burgers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Well, things change. Nowadays, small business exists because of internet (it's easier to register Instagram acc than to pay rent)... That's sad. I remember good days, real life days...

Guys, is someone know some good boat market in Norfolk? I need 3-5 person inflatable boat. Like these https://www.bestadvisers.co.uk/inflatable-boats but a little bit bigger

Edited by WillH3P0
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.