Axminster Price Hikes

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Baja-king

Established Member
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Is it me or have Axminster just hiked up most of their prices by 10% ish?

The AT260SPT PT has jumped from £1649 to £1849 (12%)

The AT254TS TS from £2,859 to £3189 (11.5%)

Plus most of the UJK stuff has gone up...
 
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You're not the first to mention that, @sebg mentioned that with the Axminster Craft AC250PT jumping up from £850 to £999.

I suppose when stock is hard to get a hold of, hike up the prices.
 
Probably also depends when they lock in their forward currency purchases. Axi is basically a bulk importer of Chinese good as far as I can see. GBP very volatile against CNY over past year:

Year-to-Date Performance for the British Pound to Chinese Yuan Exchange Rate
Best Exchange Rate: 9.4009 on 12/12/2019
Worst Exchange Rate: 8.1621 on 19/03/2020
Mid Exchange Rate: 8.9552 on 04/06/2020


Weak GBP creates expensive imports and sharp rise in prices. We need to stop being dependent on cheap Chinese tools. (I stopped ages ago).
 
Yeah ive been looking at some machines for the past four months and for the most part the prices have been the same, but this last week theres 10-15% increases on all machinery across the board. Eh!

I postponed my PT purchase because of this.
I thought you said you postponed it due to power supply issues.
 
"perfect storm" is an overused phrase, but over the last few months there have been currency value changes as AJB gave details of above, supply issues due to covid and factories shutting down, demand increases due to people both being at home more and/or on furlough (and probably not spending money going on holiday logistics) and significant increases in the availability and cost of logistics services. The latter is more than just trivial- I work for a manufacturing company and we saw endless delays through the supply chain despite the "factories" operating relatively normally. Some of these aspects have had an immediate impact on price and availability, others have been slower.

It isnt just woodworking machinery. If you look at most items costing £500 or more and I think you will find substantially less stock available than you would expect. Looking at some websites, their warehouses must be empty
 
I’ve just had the AC2606 bandsaw (well vouchers) for my birthday (A significant one with a zero on the end is all I’m admitting!) from my wife and daughter and the price had increased 5% from the last catalogue- but I was lucky as I went to a store and they had stock! I know the website doesn’t and the guy who helped serve me (and he was very helpful) said they were low in stock all over and on a lot of products.
As others have mentioned with supply chain issues in all industries this doesn’t surprise me and if they rise again it will surprise me less hence buying straight away.
 
Umm...inflation is running at 1%. The nice man at the treasury said so. What is the UK's inflation rate?

The good news is that "they" will do everything in their power to get inflation higher, because it is good for us, apparently.

Any huge price increases you see in the meantime are merely an arbitrary and completely unrelated temporary effect, and to be ignored.
 
Axminster’s price rises shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been on the forum a good few years, it has been a regular topic.
Their rises always seem to be large ones but as once explained the cost of an item has nothing to do with value, manufacturing costs or profit margin & simply down to what they think the market will pay. I was sceptical at the time but have come to realise the wisdom of those words.
 
Probably also depends when they lock in their forward currency purchases. Axi is basically a bulk importer of Chinese good as far as I can see. GBP very volatile against CNY over past year:

Year-to-Date Performance for the British Pound to Chinese Yuan Exchange Rate
Best Exchange Rate: 9.4009 on 12/12/2019
Worst Exchange Rate: 8.1621 on 19/03/2020
Mid Exchange Rate: 8.9552 on 04/06/2020


Weak GBP creates expensive imports and sharp rise in prices. We need to stop being dependent on cheap Chinese tools. (I stopped ages ago).

All Chinese trade tends to be done in US$. The £ vs $ has been all over the place. It has been very difficult over the last few months with supplies from Chinese factories. Normally we have to predict what we think we will need in 3-4 months time and Predict demand, exchange rates and sales.
Most Far East factories were completely closed for weeks after Chinese New Year when our new chaotic world started. Because of this a large proportion of the worlds containers were in the wrong places.. Since then the price of oil went through the floor, which meant it was cheaper for some container ships to sail around Africa rather than through the Suez Canal.. this extended lead times. Now the factories are very busy again. We are just Ordered the next batch of our new iTECH bandsaws.. thet will leave the factory in January so we will receive them in late February / March! so it’s now a 5-6 month prediction.
I am sure Axminster will be as competitive as they usually are when they have adequate stock. It’s not easy currently to predict and maintain a perfect supply chain and consistent prices.
 
Just after returning back to the UK from 5 years in California.....
DeWalt, heaven forbid.....had a big sale spurt as they just started selling there gear hear....35 years ago ish.....
I spoke to the chief bod on the stall and said all the kit was prob 100% over priced.....
I explaind the above facts and his words we're.....
"outside the US we sell em for the highest we can get away with"
I do have a lot of there stuff, only the 303mm sliding chopsaw bought new the rest in estate sales....
I just think that it's a rebadged Black + Decker...think I would prefer Lidil/Aldi gear when buying new.......
my personal preff is everything Japanese....
 
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