A year or so ago it was impossible to watch half an hour of prime time TV without multiple adverts of Victoria Plumb.  We all know that adverts stating best value are often not entirely true but, in this case, the whole proposition seemed really geared around convenience, saving the middle man and so on so I decided to test the offer.

At that time we were in the process of refurbishing the toilet in my business so I decided to check their prices.  The range of products available was in fact quite rich and apparently at competitive prices … until I got to checkout time.  The biggest disappointment was that on a total bill of less than £200 there was an extra £50 in delivery charges which, in my opinion was excessive both as an absolute figure as well as in proportion to the total payable for products.  I cancelled the transaction and eventually bought from one of their competitors.

Most on-line suppliers nowadays are delivering for free unless expect special delivery times or dates are required; £50 delivery for a single small item was definitely their way of recovering some of the discount they apply to their product but they lost me as a client with that.