Phones 4U

News and views on shopping in the county town.
Alec
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by Alec » Mon 16 Dec, 2013 4:57 pm

leo densian wrote: Not in my experience. My phone is £4 per month cheaper through CPW website than in-store. The store were not allowed to match the price. As I would be unlikely to be at home to sign for it I had it delivered to the shop and collected from there. Pretty crazy really.
Agreed, the CPW situation where you can buy online and then have it delivered free to the shop, but where the shop won't match the online price, is just crazy. It may be a strategy to allow them to reduce staffing in stores, but won't stop someone from going and asking advice in the store, ordering online, and then returning to the store to collect - which feels much less morally wrong when it's the same company.

I've no problem with (slightly) higher in-store prices, in theory, as long as they price match for the more savvy.

Ultimately, though, it's their choice, but I know they've lost business in the past for that.

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Steve
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by Steve » Sat 04 Jan, 2014 4:02 am

Phones 4U opens today

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Steve
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by Steve » Mon 15 Sep, 2014 2:57 am

Oh dear

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ontract-ee" target="_blank

As I understand it, Phones4U outbid Claire's Accessories for the Bircherley Green unit, which now seems a little ironic.

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leo densian
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by leo densian » Mon 15 Sep, 2014 12:08 pm

Its very sad news, but you can't be a retailer with nowt to sell.

thefair1973
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Joined:Tue 18 Oct, 2005 12:00 am

Re: Phones 4U

Post by thefair1973 » Wed 17 Sep, 2014 10:39 am

the reason they have nothing to sell is that the networks are trying to maximize their margins by selling direct. I can't remember the phone store footprint in Hertford, but I'm pretty sure most of the networks have their own retail presence, so it makes sense for them to sell via this route instead of paying a percentage to the likes of Phones4U. I suspect Carphone Warehouse will not be that far behind. P4U had 550-ish retail stores, with EE and Voda having roughly the same. No surprise to read this morning that the two bidders picking over the remains of P4U are Voda and EE.

codek2
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by codek2 » Wed 17 Sep, 2014 11:21 am

i thought carphone were a little different? They have some plans where they do the billing right?

so effectively they buy a bazillion minutes, then re-sell it back to people?

phones4u was nothing more than a middleman, adding no value to the process, other than competition. but there's direct competition between the operators anyhow.

Nevertheless the mobile operators are making bundles of cash right now, nice business to be in.

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Steve
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by Steve » Wed 17 Sep, 2014 12:08 pm

thefair1973 wrote:the reason they have nothing to sell is that the networks are trying to maximize their margins by selling direct. I can't remember the phone store footprint in Hertford, but I'm pretty sure most of the networks have their own retail presence, so it makes sense for them to sell via this route instead of paying a percentage to the likes of Phones4U. I suspect Carphone Warehouse will not be that far behind. P4U had 550-ish retail stores, with EE and Voda having roughly the same. No surprise to read this morning that the two bidders picking over the remains of P4U are Voda and EE.
Only EE has a presence in town. No O2 or Vodafone.

The advantage with P4U was that you could see all the network prices for a given phone, rather than having to visit each store and find the phone. Agree that the P4U model is broken though.

Robbo
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Joined:Sun 01 Dec, 2013 7:19 pm

Re: Phones 4U

Post by Robbo » Wed 17 Sep, 2014 12:13 pm

Carphone Warehouse have recently merged with Dixons - now Dixons Carphone - and their share price went up as a direct result of Phones 4U going into administration. Financial Analysts have estimated that their profits could also jump by 10%. What is not widely reported is that the network operators had asked Phones 4U ' to improve its store service and promotion of brands in shops', but this had not been forthcoming, even though they made £105m profits last year.

Clearly the owners - BC Partners (private equity) have gone for maximum profit margins, failing to invest in the business to meet the needs of their suppliers and had the rug pulled from underneath them.

Amazing to think they bought the business for £700m 3 years ago.

jackanapes
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Re: Phones 4U

Post by jackanapes » Wed 17 Sep, 2014 12:19 pm

thefair1973 wrote:the reason they have nothing to sell is that the networks are trying to maximize their margins by selling direct. I can't remember the phone store footprint in Hertford, but I'm pretty sure most of the networks have their own retail presence, so it makes sense for them to sell via this route instead of paying a percentage to the likes of Phones4U. I suspect Carphone Warehouse will not be that far behind. P4U had 550-ish retail stores, with EE and Voda having roughly the same. No surprise to read this morning that the two bidders picking over the remains of P4U are Voda and EE.

Maximize their margins by squeezing out competition and making contracts more expensive. This is an anti-competitive move designed to increase profits at our expense, P4U was just stuck in the middle.

Not sure how their model was broken, they made over £100m last year.

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