Independents and Corporations

The bathroom market is broadly divided as follows:

• New Builds
• Contracts
• Refurbishments of old bathrooms
• Complete new bathroom

New Builds and contracts are entirely in the hands of companies. They are large contracts involving hundreds of bathrooms, and the contracts are arranged from a variety of suppliers. Normally, the supplier will quote for the contract and then fix a price for that contract. It is up to the retailer then how much margin to make.

As an end user, you will be upgrading an old bathroom, or adding a new bathroom. In either case, you are best to go to a bathroom showroom. The page on Advice lists the various types of retailers and the pros and cons of buying through them.

A bathroom showroom is really specialised in bathroom sales and generally the service is better than the service offered by big companies, eg Bathstore, Plumbase, Plumbcenter. The larger companies tend to under train the staff and you are left to decide from catalogues. Speaking the owner of a small independent is the best way to get details for a sale but he may focus on one part of the market.

For information about products, without question the Web will provide many details. Again it may surpise people to learn that many suppliers (seen as manufacturers) are small employing under 10 people. So a large part of the industry is specialised and requiring extensive market knowledge only found in the minds of a small number of people.

Avoid buying cheap. Cheap will mean corners are cut and the companies have too little profit to run a business without risks of damage, or going out of business (see delivery). But at a good price from a company from which you know they have good knowledge. Do not buy from foreign companies via the Web as you will have no legal protection if something goes wrong.