• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Axminster update

I’ve been fortunate to live close to Axminster for more years than I care to remember. First used them when they had the old multi storied shop on the outskirts of the town centre. How they organised that place was beyond me!

I must have spent thousands with them over that time.

Like Rob I’ll be very surprised if they’re still trading by Christmas. Real shame
 
TrimTheKing said:
I'm trying to educate my kids that saving to buy the better quality version of the 'thing' they want is better than the cheap one then having to pay the same again in 1/2/3 years time, or then spending on the original good quality one. It's hard....
Click to expand...
No.1 son was contemplating purchasing a power/hammer drill a couple of years ago for a spot of DIY and asked advice, to which I basically said "don't buy cheap" as he was on the point of buying something ghastly and tacky. To his credit, he took my advice and went for a decent Milwaukee with an additional battery - Rob
 
I too think Axminster are probably toast. I've bought quite a bit from them, especially machinery when I set up my current workshop (cyclone, bandsaw etc) but then we started to see the move to cheaper brands and a clear quality drop. A friend of mine bought a Rider plane (he was with me and I said don't do it) and it was a shocker. Had to be returned. The shop near us, now closed of course, used to stock Lie Nielson, Veritas, some Clifton and various good quality chisels, plus great benches and a lot of Festool gear. But the prices were too high and they would neither discount properly nor price-match. I've bought quite a few LN, Clifton and Blue Spruce tools, mostly on eBay where they were a great deal cheaper. A tool is second hand the minute you use it, so why buy new if you are purchasing reliable quality?

They stopped doing Jet machinery for some reason and cut down the range of benches (which were often great) and power tools. I never saw the shop busy, except when they ran workshops, which was the only time customers outnumbered staff. My instinct is the HO management team were yearning for a time when bricks and mortar ruled, and failed to notice that Amazon and other on-line sellers were eating them alive. I'm not sure they properly understood their market after about 2010.

Sad but I think the brand is irretrievably damaged.
 
Bought from them once.
Order from RSA, pay from UK, deliver to friend UK address, friend posts to RSA.
I was impressed by their online ordering/processing and delivery.
Royal Mail impressive, tracks all the way to Jhb Int airport. Then gets lost in fifth world postal system, took 3 months to deliver.
 
I have noticed that some things have started coming back into stock. So just maybe...
 
I am busy next week but the following week I will spend some money with them and stock up some consumables etc. Over the years they have been exceptionally good to me so I will buy from them this year where I can. If we want them to survive we need to buy from them.
 
I used to buy most of my tools from Axminster as did other expats I know living in Spain, there prices and customer service was excellent, once my Fein saw had a problem, Axminster collected it sent it back to uk for repair and had it back to me in 7 days and no charge.
Then Brexit happened and like all my uk suppliers they could no longer compete.

I really hope they can survive, but the reality is can they when Bezos can undercut there prices…..
 
Axi has always been my "go to" supplier for the small stuff and I've spent many a happy hour browsing their shop in Axminster and coming away with stuff I never knew existed, or didn't realise I wanted! :rolleyes:. However, when I was looking for a new P/T I read all the reviews and forums and concluded that the best piece of kit for my needs was a Minimax FS30G. Axi would have to order it in, so as all the suppliers would have to import it from the Italian factory, and with a 4 month lead time, I got several quotes. In the end Richard Haydock at RJWoodworking Machinery quoted me £200 less for a Xylent spiral-headed machine than Axi quoted for the basic straight-bladed model. That was a saving of £800 comparing like-for-like. Richard was great to deal with, picked up his phone or answered emails promptly, and I have no regrets at all. I suspect the combination of Covid, spiralling energy costs, a rise in minimum wage, a massive increase in employers' NI contributions and with a huge hike in business rates still to come has produced the most hostile business environment of the last 50 years :(.
 
I have shopped a lot at the High Wycombe branch, mostly larger machines with only a small amount of the smaller stuff. I noticed that the last time I visited the floor space had been halved. The service has been superb so i hope they can survive.
 
I received an email yesterday from Greenvill Crafts advising they are now an official stockist of UJK tools. They also had Axminster wares on display at the he Harrogate show.

Perhaps selective partnering with other retailers is part of the plan.
 
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