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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:44 pm
by London Stone Paving
Hello all
We are currently thinking about getting all of our sandstone calibrated to 25mm.
A lot of companies are currently supplying 22mm calibrated sandstone but we dont think 22mm is strong enough. Another point is that the companies who supply 22mm stone are actually improving their profit margin because they can fit a lot more stone in a container and reduce haulage costs.
The problem we are facing is that if we calibrate our stone to 25mm we will have to slightly increase the cost of the stone too our customers in order to retain the same profit margin.
We currently charge £16 + VAT per m2 for our sandstone and if we calibrated to 25mm we would have to increase the price to about £17.50-£18 + VAT per m2.
Would welcome opinions from anyone who buys sandstone on a regular basis. Would it put you off if your supplier did a similar thing???
Thanks in advance
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 6:35 pm
by lutonlagerlout
i would rather it was calibrated to 40 mm but thats just me
calibrate is used in the loosest terms here, the flags calibrated to 22mm can be anything from 10-22mm, 22mm is the largest they can be.
TBH LSP you are trying to buck the market here and realistically trying to charge people more in the current climate will lead to tears
near me the 50p shop put the pound shop out of business in a month,things are that bad
I hear ye about transport costs etc. but the first lot of injun stone i used was all at least 35-45 mm thick(7 years ago) it has got progressively thinner,and to my mind they always put at least 2 duffers in every crate
I reckon if you provide a good service people will be more likely to come back,but every man and his dog is flogging sandstone these days
all the best
LLL 
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 7:48 pm
by GB_Groundworks
i just paid about £17 a metre for 22mm calibrated and it was everything from 12mm to 40mm
duffers in each crate and lots of those annoying 300x300 units.
these were sawn on all sides, smooth units
Edited By GB_Groundworks on 1279051410
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:17 pm
by Hawk
£17 a metre is cheap compared to Marshalls so called ethiclly
sourced Fairstone, having sais that, its callibrated to about 25mm and every flag is spot on, especially the sawn smooth version
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:44 pm
by Bob_A
GB_Groundworks wrote:i just paid about £17 a metre for 22mm calibrated and it was everything from 12mm to 40mm
duffers in each crate and lots of those annoying 300x300 units.
these were sawn on all sides, smooth units
I paid just over £20/metres for 22mm Calibrated Stoneflair Purestone.
The underside was milled flat and the top was riven.
The top being riven meant there was bound to be a bit of variation but overall they were more or less 22mm with no real drastic differences.
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 11:29 pm
by STAFFORDSHIRE STONE
25mm material can be purchased from the main uk importers for around 14 + vat p/m so it will be very hard for you to sell large volumes at 17-18 you either pile it high and sell it cheap or you up your prices and sit looking at it ! .
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 6:33 am
by cookiewales
STAFFORDSHIRE STONE wrote:25mm material can be purchased from the main uk importers for around 14 + vat p/m so it will be very hard for you to sell large volumes at 17-18 you either pile it high and sell it cheap or you up your prices and sit looking at it ! .
plus the diy guys will break lots of slabs just laid 160m2 polished 450x 600 300x 600 900x600 varied from 10mm to 35mm shite slabs to work with guy bought them cheap been in crates for 6 years 
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Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:54 pm
by London Stone Paving
Thanks for the comments guys.
It would be brilliant to get stone calibrated to 30, 35 even 40mm but it is just not commercially viable in the current market. Will take all the comments on board.
There are a lot of people out there looking for a bargain, thats the same with any business. I am sure all the tradesman who use this site will concur.
The problem with piling high and selling cheap is that it becomes difficult to provide good customer service, it can even become a reason not to provide good customer service. Something along the line of, "what do you expect it only costs £12 per m2"
Plus you can lose respect for what you are doing if your just knocking it out at 100 miles per hour.
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:53 pm
by lutonlagerlout
I buy sandstone from global via butterfields in luton
its around £20 a metre but thats delivered and backable if i dont like the roughness (1-2 in every crate)
to me its worth paying an extra fiver a metre for delivery and service
I can buy it cheap as chips on ebay but its likely to be pants
i dont envy you LSP selling stone right now
it was great when it first took off but the pressure on price is all one way now
LLL
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 6:04 pm
by London Stone Paving
Yep it can be hard going but what business isn't these days?
Before I got into stone I was a landscaper plying my trade in Stoke. That was hard graft for very small returns! Not an awful lot of money up there, if you weren't recommended it was purely about price.
Its difficult to understand because people wont scrimp and buy the cheapest car they can find, or if they are shopping at tesco the trolley wont be full of tesco value items. When it comes to getting there driveway paved or their garden landscaped however a hell of a lot of people will go with the cheapest price.
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:38 pm
by rab1
always explain the costs to people like this,
a mini costs x , a merc costs x and finally a rolls royce costs x.
if you pay mini costs you get cheapest thing going (crap) and dont expect a silver spur/bently.
you get what you pay for in this life (unless you dael with a gypo).
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 11:49 pm
by STAFFORDSHIRE STONE
The motto of Tescos Founder was Pile it High Sell it Cheap , where did he go wrong !
Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:53 am
by ispaving
I am an importer of sandstone,and purely sell calibrated stone.
All my stone was 25mm calibrated, but now with the harder stones i am getting 22mm calibrated. The only reason being is that the shipping lines have increased their shipping rates by 500%. Unfortunately i would be out of business if i did the same.
Its a unique selling point to the D-I-Yer, and to the accomplished landscaper/paving expert as it does reduce their time spent on a project. With this in mind im sure that they would not mind paying £1 extra/m2 for calibrated stone.
The calibration process in india is £1/m2, so if prices in the UK are only raised by £1 or so, im sure there wont be many complaints.
Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:01 pm
by msh paving
22mm thats almost floor tile thickness.....MSH 
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