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FFX no longer trading

I wonder if the COVID craze for handcrafts of various sorts wasn’t understood to be a flash in the pan and these vendors expanded on the assumption that it would last.
The same thing seems to have happened with fishing tackle stores.
 
It is a shame. They won an award not too long ago for putting a lot back into their local community as they grew from being a local DIY shop to a successful online business.
 
It would be interesting to know what put them out of business. Their strategy seemed to be focus on good brands and undercut the on-line competition. I suspect many of us bought from FFX, me included. But undercutting prices, which customers are bound to want, generates a) a race to the bottom and b) business who try to operate sensibly seem expensive. With cheap PRC goods flooding our market we are conditioned now.
 
I’ve also bought from them in the past without any problem but they seem to be getting a bit of a hammering over on t’other place. Justified or not impossible to say.
 
I bought from them because I didn’t have a relationship with another supplier, they always had the item I was looking for, and the price was lower than others online. Probably about 10 orders of various sizes, but 4 or 5 of those orders had problems including delays, missing items, the wrong item, soup, and item not in stock despite multiple promises of delivery and a lot of follow up on my part.

The first few problems were dealt with quickly, in a friendly manner, and to my satisfaction. The last one got refunded, but was stressful and put me off ordering from them again. Despite that, it was a while ago, so I was considering an order when I saw that they’d gone bust.

I wonder if they are exposed indirectly to fallout from ISG or it’s completely unrelated.
 
Weird, isn’t it? They sent me a Festool saw blade where the exterior cardboard packaging looked OK, but the blade itself looked like someone had spilled soup on it.

They sent me another blade, no need to return the soupy one, so bad service to receive a soupy blade, but good service to get another, non-soupy blade without hassle.
 
AJB Temple said:
It would be interesting to know what put them out of business...
Click to expand...
I think it's no coincidence that the other firm in Kent that's also gone bust (mentioned in the article) was a branch of a large construction firm.

I suspect the UK economy has shrunk quite a bit more than the official numbers suggest, and that horns are being pulled-in now it's apparent just how badly things will be run (i.e. high tax and generally anti-commerce specifically) in the next few years. I suspect a lot of lucrative developments are either cancelled or indefinitely postponed.
 
It has not bought the business. Just the brand name and web domain. The liabilities in the original group remain with the administrators. ITS has assumed no responsibility or liability.
 
AJB Temple said:
It has not bought the business. Just the brand name and web domain. The liabilities in the original group remain with the administrators. ITS has assumed no responsibility or liability.
Click to expand...

I suppose it's quite a sensible tactical decision on ITS's part, they've bought the brand and site of their main competitor without any of the liabilities and costs, and they get all of the diverted traffic from the FFX site from people who might not have realised FFX is now gone. It will also will be impossible for anyone to start another business using FFX's assets and stock as the name is now gone.
 
^^ exactly. This is why they have done it. Administrator would not have sold just the brand if there was any other deal to be done. I don't know anything about ITS and have not checked their accounts filings.
 
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ITS were my go to for many years, they just got on with things quietly and efficiently, but they started to fall behind when it came to the advertising and promotion and for me were no longer front of my mind when looking for stuff, screwfix, toolstation, ebay, ffx became places i looked first. But they’re obviously still busy and keen to improve market share.
 
I’ve been looking at Festool prices on ITS and Screwfix and noticed that ITS changes prices frequently. I haven’t kept detailed records, but it feels like ITS can go from £30-50 below Screwfix pricing on a £600-£700 tool to £30-50 above and then back again over the course of a week. I don’t know if their pricing is personalised, but it certainly feels dynamic.

Meanwhile Toolstation has Festool stuff on their site at incredibly good prices, but it is completely unavailable. They mark it as available for collection only, implying it is available at one of their locations, but none of their locations actually have the tool. Other people have noticed and there are a couple of reviews on their site pointing it out. Feels shady.

I’ve just started adding D&M Tools into the mix of sites I’m looking at and they seem to have good prices, I haven’t noticed any unusual price changes yet, and they get really good reviews on Trustpilot. It’s starting to look like I may make a purchase there. Anyone got any concerns about this company or its financial health?
 
Thanks Doug. N&B do seem to be the cheapest in general of the sellers I’m looking at, but have significantly fewer items in stock than the others resulting quite often in a 21 day delivery time.
 
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