Boy the fees just keep getting added

[KE4AVB]

It continuation of what started last year.

Gardner just increase their credit card usage fee to 2.5% from 1.5%.

RBI increase their SHC earlier this year and just add another $1.87 to it (actually say it is added to all orders.) So basically the shipping charge is now $13.82 per order. I hoping that it is not to the free orders which they increase to $225 level.

A&I got so bad at the SHC that I had to quit them; unless, I can come up with the minimum free order.

The only good thing that happen this year is Stens switch me to a better pricing level so they are getting a lot more orders.

Yet these companies think we are to keep our retail prices the same based on the prices files I downloading. Even these are having huge increases in both cost and resale prices. MTD is the worst offender on this. Although the retail prices are going up at much lower rate. Otherwords these companies are expecting us to absorb all these costs to make it look good to the final customer. Well I am too small to do this so I must pass it along.

I even got customers now wanting the bring in their equipment with no fuel and expect me to it in for free. Not going to happen. I just adding it to their bills.

Rant over for now....

Boy will the aggravation ever end??? Enough to make me quit.

[bgsengine]

Boy will the aggravation ever end??? Enough to make me quit.

Now you know why I quit the business myself. just wasn't worth the stress any more. Filed bankruptcy and restructured my budget to live on 1400/month SSD. Much poorer , way less spending money, but 10 times less stress and aggravation.

[KE4AVB]

Boy will the aggravation ever end??? Enough to make me quit.

Now you know why I quit the business myself. just wasn't worth the stress any more. Filed bankruptcy and restructured my budget to live on 1400/month SSD. Much poorer , way less spending money, but 10 times less stress and aggravation.

And I don't blame you one bit either.

That Pita customer called today about his CC that I was redoing the deck spindle. When I told I had to put gas in it he want me to drain it back out. Apparently he is too cheap to even pay for a gallon of gasoline. He finally agree for me the fix engine problem cause by mice. He said it would only take 30 min to pull, repair, reinstall the engine. Well it took just over an hour to get it out. Boy I hate when someone tries to me how long it should take. But I got news for him as it is the last job I am doing for him. He can take penny pinching attitude to somewhere else from now. I don't like a customer that think I am intentionally trying rip them off.

Brian I am trying to make it a couple more years and then I probably will go to semi retired level once I have a steady income from SS.

[bgsengine]

Brian I am trying to make it a couple more years and then I probably will go to semi retired level once I have a steady income from SS.

Yeah, and the industry mags (Power Equipment Trade pretty much seems to be the only one left) all wonder why the dealer base is declining...... honestly, aside from the hobbyists, the OPE repair business days are pretty much numbered...so it'll just be the semi-retired and retired hobbyist shops fixing stuff for people they actually LIKE doing business with, at little to no profit, and the MEGA DEALERS (and box stores for the cheap china crap). I had enough of small engine repair stuff that now I have only 3 customers - Me, my next door neighbor, and my dad (and likely that number shrinks to 2 within the next couple years, dad's at loose ends what with mom passing on last year...) I went into woodworking, saving up for a good lathe to replace my cheapo harbor freight lathe, have more enjoyment doing that and bring in a few extra bucks at farmer's markets in the summertime...

[RoyM]

Power Source Canada told us they were under pressure from Briggs to maintain U.S. pricing because of the internet which ain't gonna happen. We are already at a disadvantage because of the exchange rate. They asked Briggs what they were paying for warehouse space. $7-9$ USD/sq ft, PSC was paying $15. $8 to send a package to Detroit, $15 from Toronto to Ottawa. There was talk of the IDN swallowing them up and handling distribution from the U.S. but don't know if that happened, it would kill the Canadian market.

[KE4AVB]

Yes cost is killing all us right now. Everytime I turn around I am getting with a price increase one or the other. Yet those with $115 Craftsman chainsaw expects me to fix it for next to nothing other parts at cost. They just don't see the overhead we are paying for everything now which up a lot compared to two years ago. Just can't keep it up much longer as a business.

As for Briggs they did it to themselves as far a sales goes. Customer are moving away from in groves because of the bankruptcy and the huge price increases.

The financial managers are just looking at the bottom and don't care about repeat business anymore. All the norms are out the door now.

[hanz63]

The thing to remember here is that everyone who eats understands that the groceries went up 30%. They pay it. Your customers should pay it as well. They know your parts $$ went up. You have a part on the shelf that you paid $50 for, but it will be $65 to replace, base your customer price on the replacement cost. How else do you keep your head above water? I gladly tell customers when they are not going to get the value out of the repair. If they know ahead that it will cost of maintenance and repairs will be 75% of a new one and that doesn't work for them, no time or goodwill is wasted. Surprisingly with product availability, many have spent these dollars where they wouldn't of a few years back. It's great way to change your time to something that you can make bank on. I saw your note before on gas pricing. I know of 2 gas stations in the metro area that are under 5$ a gallon. It's gonna hit 6!

[KE4AVB]

The thing to remember here is that everyone who eats understands that the groceries went up 30%. They pay it. Your customers should pay it as well. They know your parts $$ went up. You have a part on the shelf that you paid $50 for, but it will be $65 to replace, base your customer price on the replacement cost. How else do you keep your head above water? I gladly tell customers when they are not going to get the value out of the repair. If they know ahead that it will cost of maintenance and repairs will be 75% of a new one and that doesn't work for them, no time or goodwill is wasted. Surprisingly with product availability, many have spent these dollars where they wouldn't of a few years back. It's great way to change your time to something that you can make bank on. I saw your note before on gas pricing. I know of 2 gas stations in the metro area that are under 5$ a gallon. It's gonna hit 6!

Well the grocery thing isn't hurting me as much as I am on diet to the lose weight to lower my BP since the jerk of a doctor prefers to use me as a test subject. Once he found out the un-need med change was causing problems he initially refuse to do anything about it. He did finally made another change to the meds but never told me about it. I found out about it Sunday, two months after his office called in the prescription changes and never informed me. I going to try one those Docs in a box to see if I can get my meds for the next year.

I have actually lose 20 lbs so far and the BP is down from 225/110 to this morning's 166/100.

As for groceries prices I can deal with it by changing my eating habits otherwise too. My monthly bill is already half of what was a few months ago. Even fuel prices can be offset a little with my monthly discounts. Last month I got forty cents off per gallon. But yes the price Sunday was $4.15 and yesterday I saw it at $4.36.

As far parts that is exactly what I am doing currently with $35K inventory so I making a little extra on the stock items from last year. I do my best to procure replacement parts at a fair price too. Some items I could cheat a little on as I outsource the parts like JD Kawasaki engine parts but I don't. I do have my morals. It like the dust ejector I just made a test purchase on for a JD Z950R. JD wants 13.10 ea for them when I can get the alternate for under $10 and sell it at the JD cost price. I actually save the customers and myself over $3000 on parts for JD engines last year.

This is keeping me from raising my labor rate for a while but that will probably change if things don't improve by Fall. Replacement tools do cost more now.