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majorbloodnock

Ghast well and truly flabbered

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My wife and I are looking at getting some rooms carpeted. To get the ball rolling, we wandered into one of the high street retailers - Carpetright - and asked a few questions. I wasn't shocked that the extras would be a considerable part of the price, but certainly wasn't prepared for the itemised quote we were given.

 

For a total of 40sqm carpeting, including stairs, some fairly cheap carpet would cost us about £250. This seems to be pretty standard across both high street and online retailers. However, Carpetright quoted us another £250 for underlay (we came across far better quality underlay online for about half that figure) and £140 for about 60 metres of gripper rods (we were able to find several places where we can get 150 metres for about £22).

 

Just in case anyone didn't quite pick up on that, I'm going to underline that, embolden it and paint it in big neon letters.

 

Gripper rods from Carpetright are SIX TIMES the price of the same things elsewhere.

 

That's not cheeky, that's plain arrogant greed.

 

We have therefore decided to do the fitting ourselves (lucky I've done it a couple of times before). Once we've factored in all the other little things they're hiking up, we've found we're roughly halving our cost; a saving of several hundred pounds. Nonetheless, I've been so shocked at just how much they were trying to shaft us that I now feel somewhat unclean each time I think of that store visit. Needless to say, I will not be buying the actual carpet from them, and am unlikely to do so from any of the direct competitors either. Just wait until I find a smaller independent that could do with a bit of extra custom.....

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That's shocking - but doesn't totally surprise me, their advertising budget must be huge. I reckon local independent shops often offer better value. My father used to sell carpets, and his advice was always to get the best-quality underlay you could afford, because it will make the carpet last longer; it's a false economy to buy good carpet and cheap underlay. Good luck with the fitting, provided it doesn't involve awkward corners and things it shouldn't be too difficult.

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It's basically the good old cup and pea trick; go raving on about how competitive your carpet prices are and hopefully the customer will take their eye off the price of the other items which (because everyone's banging on about carpet price and not overall cost) they have little to compare against.

 

I don't mind people making a profit, otherwise they wouldn't be in business and able to provide me with a service. However, trying to hide markups of several hundred percent is morally corrupt even if it doesn't fall foul of any legislation.

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