Thread: Important notice to Victorian customers

I'm still waiting for a reply to an e-mail I sent regarding my last purchase from yesterday morning. It's unusual not to get a reply from Hague the same day, so I suspect he is either snowed under or not in the office.

If its anything like the people around my place of work and my wifes, half the peopel are sick at the moment!

Anyways, I reckon the 9 cent delivery for us who live nearbye sounds like a good idea (heck I would be happy to have paid $5 delivery for the ml-392, drill press, bandsaw, extractor that ive bought so far! )

RB

TrevorOwen - Freight companies for some reason don't think like that. They have a truck that goes direct from Perth to Melbourne, so while they drive through the state, they don't "stop off" on the way. Vic customers only at the moment. Sorry.

Burn, netfirm, DPB - Regarding warranty, if it is just a broken part, we will send it over to you. If it is a major fundamental problem, we get it back here, and if it is a genuine warranty claim, we will pay freight both ways. We have a very good service man that can usually diagnose a problem over the phone and sort it out if it is just an adjustment issue, but if its something fundamental we get it back here. We have gone down the path of using repair agents and it backfires on us because the repair agents don't know the machine.

Interestingly enough, it has been months since we have had a machine back for any kind of "faulty workmanship" warranty claim. Most machines returned to us are damaged in transit, but this doesn't happen often either. We know of the distance problem, so our aim is to sell you stuff that doesn't need warranty work done on it in the first place. These days our failure rate is so low, that most customers who have our machines don't even question what happens if.... btw damage in transit can be covered by a small insurance charge, $1 for every $50 of the value of goods.

DarrylF, Sir Stinkalot, Pete J - I don't much like the colour of our machines either. Ross picked it, not me. I've got two machines coming down in two experimental colours. Quite boring really, they're two different shades of green - like a British racing green. It will take another 6 weeks to decide on the colour, then probably another 6 months to get all the orange machines replaced with the green. Probably all done by the end of this year. You could always just buy a spray can for the time being.

DPB - They've been selling well already. We're almost out but have more due in shortly *fingers crossed*

Routermaniac - This is as much an experiment to see what happens with our sales as much as a genuine offer. Killing two birds with one stone really. Might work out well. Who knows?

netfirm, ozwinner - just so you know, i am not aware of a single machine that is currently being copied by two different manufacturers in Taiwan. They are all unique to each manufacturer. Each company that buys can specify different specs but they're not copied. China on the other hand, has copied a lot of machines from Taiwanese manufacturers and there are usually two or more different manufacturers making identical looking machines. Usually one is price competitive and the other is quality competitive with China. Every time we're faced with the choice, we go for the latter option - refer to the issue on warranty for the reasons why. If our machines stuffed up all the time, you'd hear complaints on here, no one would buy our machines and if they did, our profit would be wiped out by freight costs sorting the problem.

soundman - this is a toe in the water to see if we can sort out an option that you're talking about. We'll see what happens.

Redback - If it is who i think it is, yesterday was a shocker. Just recovering from it now - had to sort out a lot of other business type stuff yesterday so didn't have outlook open for emails. Responding soon.

RIGHT NOW FOR THE ACTUAL RESPONSE

I did actually check the forum yesterday morning, but I said I would check yesterday, not provide the response. Being tricky (or smartass-ish - you decide!!!)

I have taken into consideration the response received from this thread. We are now working on if and when we will start the offer. We have to actually mail customers in Vic so it may take a little while to prepare and print and post the offer if we decide to go ahead so bear with us.

I also have to discuss with "the powers that be" about the idea as well. I know that you would all love it if we did this, but its not my business so I can't make the final decision on this. I shall let you know in the next week or so what is going on so you know one way or the other. *fingers crossed it all works out*

Originally Posted by Hague Gobby

DarrylF, Sir Stinkalot, Pete J - I don't much like the colour of our machines either. Ross picked it, not me. I've got two machines coming down in two experimental colours. Quite boring really, they're two different shades of green - like a British racing green. It will take another 6 weeks to decide on the colour, then probably another 6 months to get all the orange machines replaced with the green. Probably all done by the end of this year. You could always just buy a spray can for the time being.

My suggestion, for what it's worth....

Don't go green or grey. Most of the market is some shade of green or grey-green. I know Jet is white, but overseas you see I think ShopFox and one or two others also in white. Jet here has a decent quality name, so it can't hurt to be associated with that image, and it definitely can't hurt to stay away from the pack by not using green. I mean, the idea of the orange I guess was to look different from the others, which is a good idea - just the colour is awful

So personally I'd go off-white - Ford Polar White in auto paints is very close to the white that Jet and Biesemeyer both use.

Who else has green? I can't think of any other suppliers that do - C/T have blue, jet have milky white, Delta is grey, sheppach is... well not green. No one i know of in the Aussie market has british racing green....

Originally Posted by Hague Gobby

Who else has green? I can't think of any other suppliers that do - C/T have blue, jet have milky white, Delta is grey, sheppach is... well not green. No one i know of in the Aussie market has british racing green....

I've got a couple in green - usually the no-name stuff sold by Total Tools, Gasweld etc. Hare & Forbes sell some stuff in green I believe. None of the established brands here as far as I can remember. At least green is better than orange I guess

Darryl, i know the green you're talking about - the new colour different is to that shade of green. It will be a deep polished colour, similar finish to what we have now except in green. It will look different from all else on the market and also really quite nice. The other thing as well is i want to tie the machinery colour in with our own company colours. We have the volume where we can specify a particular colour and get all of our machines in the same colour, something that Total Tools or Gasweld or H&F don't seem to be able/want to do.

Yes I am interested.

It seems crazy that in a place the size of Melb you need to get it from WA. I have brought from you before and been happy with the results.

I can't believe we're debating what colour the stuff should be. I don't care if they are pink, as long as they work. Makes me think of Diane Fisher on the old Inventors show "yes, it's all very well, but what colours does it come in?".

FWIW I've got blue Carba-tec, blue Hare & Forbes, and orange Timbecon machines. So far as I can tell, the colour has made no difference to the operation

Ive got a shed full of orange now....

Triton and Sherwood....

I can't buy anything else now cos it won't match the others

Originally Posted by Hague Gobby

Darryl, i know the green you're talking about - the new colour different is to that shade of green. It will be a deep polished colour, similar finish to what we have now except in green. It will look different from all else on the market and also really quite nice. The other thing as well is i want to tie the machinery colour in with our own company colours. We have the volume where we can specify a particular colour and get all of our machines in the same colour, something that Total Tools or Gasweld or H&F don't seem to be able/want to do.

How about white with green racing stripes?? Oh well - like I said, at least it's not orange

Actually, I get it finally.... Sherwood. Sherwood Forest. Green. All makes perfect sense now :confused:

Silent, I tend to agree with you personally. I also agree with the idea that if its broke, just get a bigger hammer and bash it until it works. heheh. You'd be surprised at the amount of people i've talked to that absolutely refuse to buy our machines because of just the colour.
They say "anything but that colour" - so i guess what we're doing is just changing our machinery colour so everyone likes it. But we'll change it to green and people who have orange in their workshop will then complain its not the same colour. You can't win! I work here all day and look at the colour and think we could have something better. The rest of the guys that work here agree. I dunno, seems a waste of time to do it, but it doesn't create much work getting it changed over and a lot of people will be happier - i hope.

Now how would Henry Ford have gotten on if he'd operated that way? You can have any colour, as long as it is black

Point taken though, you don't want people refusing to buy your machines because of the colour. I still think they are a bunch of women though :eek:

G'day Hague,

Like others have said, so what about the colour, if it works I don't care. But really so long as it's a quality machine and delivers on its promise.

Next we'll be putting up cutains in or sheds to match the colours of our machinery. So far I have machinery in 2 shades of blue, 1 green and off white - best race on down to Spotlight.