Fabulous Retailer - Fanthorpes of Hull

Hi Slversurfer... welcome to the forum..

That said from my posts you can see that I'm not a big hitter but I have found this to be a very friendly and informative forum

Anyway down to business...

No I don't  have any knowledge of Fanthorpes but it is nice to see companies going the exra mile..

On a personal note I am looking at both those pieces of hardware you have just purchased

Could you tell me what deal you achieved please..

Regards

Yes I've used Fanthorpes quite a few times over the years.

It's one of the few hifi shops left in Hull.

They're very knowledgable and will try to do a deal if poss'.

They do seem to be more AV rather than 2 channel nowadays though.

I too was a Fanthorpes customer for many years, but left them after being stiffed on a micromega system...seems there is good and bad with any retailer.

JCR1

We've just had the owners of Fanthorpes on the phone and they tell us they haven't sold Micromega products for at least 15 years, so it would seem your complaint is very out of date.

Andy Clough:

JCR1

We've just had the owners of Fanthorpes on the phone and they tell us they haven't sold Micromega products for at least 15 years, so it would seem your complaint is very out of date.

Whilst I agree it was a long time ago, it does not however excuse the poor service on a system that lasted around 13 months before the amplifier went faulty, and about 18 months before the stage 6 cd player started misbehaving, most cd's became unreadable.

After a lot of discussion and having the system in the shop, I was told with a shrug of the shoulders that parts could not be obtained...end of story...does this seem like good service to you?
Nobody was more dissapointed than I was with the attitude as I had been a customer for many years, if indeed the system was unrepairable/parts unobtainable, then surely at that age some compromise should have been arrived at, but unfortunately not offered, I had to write this system off and move on, however, needless to say my spending since then has been elsewhere.

The point I was originally making was that at some stage some suppliers get it wrong, fair enough, but is it not how it is dealt with afterwards that shows the true worth of a dealer?

Know your rights - might've been out of warranty, but the Sale of Goods Act also requires good are fit for purpose. It's unreasonable to assume they'll only last for a little over a year. 13 years too late, but good to know if you're ever unfortunate enough to be in this position again (presumably, with another retailer!).

the record spot:

Know your rights - might've been out of warranty, but the Sale of Goods Act also requires good are fit for purpose. It's unreasonable to assume they'll only last for a little over a year. 13 years too late, but good to know if you're ever unfortunate enough to be in this position again (presumably, with another retailer!).

Yes I guess you are right record spot, however at the time I just felt a long standing trust had been broken, and for them to ring and state that they had not sold those items for ex amount of years, does not change that.

What dealers sometimes forget is that, over the years since then it has cost them more than they saved. C'ezt La Vie

Yes they are very friendly, knowledgable and helpful and I sincerely hope that they continue to do well.

However, I personally found them somewhat reluctant to offer any discount (to repeat customers as I was). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for supporting the local dealer and would expect to pay a reasonable premium to that end. I just found it somewhat off putting.

This however is not a critism of fanthorpe's in particular. They are an excellent dealer! I just think that the local dealer, in todays internet ridden market, has to work a bit harder at securing customer loyalty / repeat custom or people will just get the cheapest they can find... with no support! I would hate to see the day where we all had to buy purely on the basis of magazine reviews.

As with the above poster, they lost my repeat custom and that does'nt benefit either of us!

whimsical:

Yes they are very friendly, knowledgable and helpful and I sincerely hope that they continue to do well.

However, I personally found them somewhat reluctant to offer any discount (to repeat customers as I was). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for supporting the local dealer and would expect to pay a reasonable premium to that end. I just found it somewhat off putting.

This however is not a critism of fanthorpe's in particular. They are an excellent dealer! I just think that the local dealer, in todays internet ridden market, has to work a bit harder at securing customer loyalty / repeat custom or people will just get the cheapest they can find... with no support! I would hate to see the day where we all had to buy purely on the basis of magazine reviews.

As with the above poster, they lost my repeat custom and that does'nt benefit either of us!

you're not wrong, i was quite surprised at their reluctance to offer discount to repeat customers especially given what i was going to spend.  when i used to go mountain biking my local bike shop always offered an immediate 10% discount to regular customers, even on stuff costing a few quid.  it always made me feel that they really appreciated my custom.  i ended up spending a few thousand there.

Well I've just been shopping there this weekend, and once again was very pleased with my service, price deal etc. In fact they were bending over backwards to help me.

I have had occasions when they couldn't match out of town prices but I just accept that.

Personaly if a local dealer gets close to a internet/out of town price I would use them just in casr something goes wrong.

I would actually revise my initial concerns regarding prices as I recently purchased an item from them at a very competative price compared to the internet (Andrew). Will certainly check them out first in the future.

Many thanks

while i may have been a little put out at not being offered a discount for repeat custom, they are brilliant when it comes to letting me home demo stuff without paying for it first.  they even drop it off and pick it up!  feel a bit bad for moaning at the lack of discount now.  although not so bad i'd turn some down.

Just a quick word of thanks to Dale and Co at Fanthorpes. They've just sorted me out with a new Cyrus DAC XP+ and good trade-in on my PreXpdQx.

I had a little problem with getting a DAC XP+ that actually worked (a demo one from another dealer had old firmware, a repro one had to go back to Cyrus as faulty and then came back with a different fault, probably due to being dropped from a great height by Parcelforce)). Dale persevered and eventually sorted me out with the help of Chris Clifton at Cyrus).

All rockin' and rollin' now, though I reluctantly had to turn down Dale's pair of Mono X300s with trade-in on my X powers. I may regret that one.

I have emailed about them about products over the years and spoke to them about trade in products and they have always been excellent!