Why Are Chards So Cheap?

[LawrenceChard]

Why Are Chards So Cheap?

This is a real question which our Customer Service Team get asked.

My quick answer would be "We can charge you more if you like!". Of course, this is a bit of a smart-arse answer, but I would say it with a cheesy grin, but then go on to give a serious answer.

It is frustrating to have to answer questions like this, but it is a fact of life for dealers like @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer who have a policy of being competitive.

It's also possibly the visible tip of the proverbial iceberg. What about the 90% of potential customers who choose to buy their investment gold, or other PM, from the most expensive source perhaps because they feel safer (Safer being ripped off?).

I can understand that some people are quite rightly cautious about buying from the cheapest source.

Perhaps what we should be explaining to people that:

If you are buying investment gold, then you should be trying to avoid paying too much for it.

We are not "too cheap", it is others who are "too dear".

You can come and see us if you want, and even collect your bullion at the same time.

We have been around for longer than any other coin and bullion dealer in the UK.

We could make more profit if we charged more, but we prefer to take a longer term view, and have happy customers who will come back to us, and also recommend us.

-----

What else have I missed?

😎

[Spyder]

I tell you what I dislike about most bullion dealers, its the headline price and then you click on the listing and see you have to buy so many to get anywhere near that rate.

The price should be the same for one or 100.  If I go the the petrol station, they don't charge me more for ten litres and less for 50 litres. 

[Lyrinn]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Why Are Chards So Cheap?

What else have I missed?

😎

In before some other cheeky monkey says "Is postage included?"

[Darr3nG]

1 minute ago, Lyrinn said:

In before some other cheeky monkey says "Is postage included?"

Beat me to it... I was searching for a suitable animated gif! Thanks @Lyrinn!!! 

[Lyrinn]

Just now, Darr3nG said:

Beat me to it... I was searching for a suitable animated gif! Thanks @Lyrinn!!! 

[Gordy]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

What else have I missed?

no such thing as free postage!!!! 😂

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, Spyder said:

I tell you what I dislike about most bullion dealers, its the headline price and then you click on the listing and see you have to buy so many to get anywhere near that rate.

The price should be the same for one or 100.  If I go the the petrol station, they don't charge me more for ten litres and less for 50 litres. 

Most petrol stations have minimum purchases. It used to be a half gallon, it is now probably 2 litres. I can remember "when I were a lad", it would frustrate and annoy friends with scooters, mopeds, and motorbikes.

Until quite recently, some stores had minimum purchase requirements to use a debit card.

Have you tried buying one fish finger from a supermarket?

I am sorry to hear about your dislikes about most bullion dealers (Does that include @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer?).

It is not just the bullion business, most of the real world operates better with quantity discounts than it would without.

In practice, it is mainly because the bullion business is so competitively priced that there are quantity discounts.

As a quick example, if someone wants to buy 1 x 2023 King Charles III Britannia 1 oz Silver Bullion Coin from us, at our current 1,000 piece price £25.02, we would probably make a loss when we allowed for staff time, and other costs. Even at our single current piece price £25.74, we could certainly think of better things to do with our time.

Of course, if we had customers willing and happy to pay £33 or £33.37 for the same product, as asked by our top two competitors in the top two spots on Google, then we wouldn't need to worry about how many at a time you bought. Even these two outfits do offer quantitiy discounts, at which point, I should go and check their best quantity price breaks...

... back soon...

1) 1000+    £25.60  +  £5.12 VAT =  £30.72

2) £29.35

So, you are correct in a funny sort of way.

You could buy 1 single coin from Chards for the less than if our top two competitors gave you their maximum quantiity discount rate. Incidentally, both of them outsell us by a quite a lot.

There is another quirk which I will leave until later, partly because I need a break, and partly because this post in danger of getting too long!

😎

[Spyder]

24 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Have you tried buying one fish finger from a supermarket?

I am sorry to hear about your dislikes about most bullion dealers (Does that include @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer?).

To begin with, supermarkets do not sell one fish finger and a discount for ten.

No, I do not dislike or have problem with ChardsCoinandBullionDealer. To be fair Chards are the cheapest most time, but that was not what I am saying.

I would prefer to see headline for one coin first, and then I can venture further to see extra discount for quantity. 

You could lead the campaign and be the first bullion dealer to advertise the real price for a single sovereign. Silver, would not matter, as buying a single 1oz would be pointless when adding VAT and postage.

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, Lyrinn said:

In before some other cheeky monkey says "Is postage included?"

1 hour ago, Darr3nG said:

Beat me to it... I was searching for a suitable animated gif! Thanks @Lyrinn!!! 

1 hour ago, Lyrinn said:

1 hour ago, Gordy said:

no such thing as free postage!!!! 😂

It's funny you should say that!

I did consider mentioning "free postage" in my OP, but decided it would detract and distract from my post.

I also realised that I could rely on at least one person out there to mention it, and you didn't fail me.

In the reply I just did to @Spyder, one of the comparisons I did was against a dealer who offers so-called "free delivery".

Just for once, to keep it simple, I did my comparison on the basis of customer in store and taking delivery over the counter. I am not sure the first competitor offers this, but the second one does not. you would need to add postage to their price. I was unable to complete the comparison because they required me to log in and proceed to checkout before I be advised about the postage cost, and that was after I had to add to basket to see price inclusive of VAT.

If you buy between 2 and 4 pieces from the first dealer, you will not be given any discount or rebate on the postage they will have saved per addiitonal coin.

Although I used a silver coin for the purposes of my example, I could have equally used a one ounce gold Britannia, or a gold sovereign, and the results and conclusions would have been similar.

Thank you for asking the questions.

Now, a question from me:

Is Chards the best coin and bullion dealer in the UK?

😎

[Petra]

11 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

It's funny you should say that!

I did consider mentioning "free postage" in my OP, but decided it would detract and distract from my post.

I also realised that I could rely on at least one person out there to mention it, and you didn't fail me.

In the reply I just did to @Spyder, one of the comparisons I did was against a dealer who offers so-called "free delivery".

Just for once, to keep it simple, I did my comparison on the basis of customer in store and taking delivery over the counter. I am not sure the first competitor offers this, but the second one does not. you would need to add postage to their price. I was unable to complete the comparison because they required me to log in and proceed to checkout before I be advised about the postage cost, and that was after I had to add to basket to see price inclusive of VAT.

If you buy between 2 and 4 pieces from the first dealer, you will not be given any discount or rebate on the postage they will have saved per addiitonal coin.

Although I used a silver coin for the purposes of my example, I could have equally used a one ounce gold Britannia, or a gold sovereign, and the results and conclusions would have been similar.

Thank you for asking the questions.

Now, a question from me:

Is Chards the best coin and bullion dealer in the UK?

😎

Not sure, but, are you the oldest?🤔🧐😁 (in more than one way😁🧐🫢)

[Darr3nG]

22 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Is Chards the best coin and bullion dealer in the UK?

[LawrenceChard]

4 minutes ago, Spyder said:

To begin with, supermarkets do not sell one fish finger and a discount for ten.

No, I do not dislike or have problem with ChardsCoinandBullionDealer. To be fair Chards are the cheapest most time, but that was not what I am saying.

I would prefer to see headline for one coin first, and then I can venture further to see extra discount for quantity. 

You could lead the campaign and be the first bullion dealer to advertise the real price for a single sovereign. Silver, would not matter, as buying a single 1oz would be pointless when adding VAT and postage.

Thanks for your very kind answer.

1) I am sure you understood my point about fish fingers.

2) 😎

3) One coin first. On most of our pages, for example https://www.chards.co.uk/2023-king-charles-iii-silver-britannia-bullion-1oz-coin/17653, our single piece price is shown first:

Quantity	Premium	Price Per Item (Exc. VAT)	Price Per Item (Inc. VAT)	Total (Inc. VAT)	Est UK Delivery
1	£3.45	£21.45	£25.74	£25.74	£3.50

and although we have not shown the price inclusive of postage, we have shown Total (Inc. VAT) and Est UK Delivery next to each other.

4) Real price for a single sovereign?

On this page: https://www.chards.co.uk/2022-gold-bullion-sovereign-elizabeth-ii-memorial-coin/18111

Quantity	Premium %	Price Per Item	Total	Est UK Delivery
1	7.55	£387.83	£387.83	£6.00

I like to think we do make things as clear and transparent as possible.

Way back in 1998, when we launched our first website https://24carat.co.uk/, it would have been very difficult for us to provide this level of technical ability on our website. Even so, if I may be permitted to brag slightly, we were the first and only coin dealer to have anything approaching a decent, modern website, and I am going to claim that we had the best coin / bullion website in the world at the time.

Even in 2000, when we had added 2 more websites, we did not at first have live precious metal price feeds, shopping carts, checkout.

We certainly did not have a "mobile friendly" website until relatively recently.

Our "Chards" website is still in a process of continual improvement, and we still have some way to go with our IT systems, which of course have to communicate and integrate with our website.

Most of our customers probably have no idea how much we spend annually on IT, systems and website development. I still blink and shake my head when I think about the amounts involved.

It makes me wonder not just:

Why Are Chards So Cheap?

but also:

How Do Chards Manage to Remain So Cheap?

and still pay ourselves and make a profit...

But we do!

Thanks again for your response.

😎

[LawrenceChard]

12 minutes ago, Petra said:

Not sure, but, are you the oldest?🤔🧐😁 (in more than one way😁🧐🫢)

Yes and no.

Richard Lobel of Coincraft is older than me, but CoinCraft is a numismatic dealer only, and has a "no bullion" policy. The do not even handle new Royal Mint coins or sets, or slabbed coins.

The Royal Mint claim to have been established for about 1100 years, but they have only dealt in "collector" coins since 1970, and investment bullion coins since 2000.

So yes, I and Chards are the oldest in just about every way.

If anyone can think of a challenger, please let me know.

I would still prefer to be the youngest!

😎

[LawrenceChard]

9 minutes ago, Darr3nG said:

I'll take that as a "yes"!

😎

[Spyder]

To be fair to you Lawrence, your websites has always been the to go to sites to read up information about unusual coins and medals. Years ago, when I bought some coins made metalimports and other non familiar companies, at least one of your site seem to always have information about them.

If only you had branched to the south, I would have bought a lot more in person over the years and probably have sold back.

Yes I would say you are best Bullion dealer, not because of price, but about what I wrote above

Edited February 17, 2023 by Spyder

[Stuntman]

The more time I spend on here, the more impressed I am with Chards, and Mr Lawrence Chard.

I order bullion fairly infrequently these days but it is no coincidence that my last two orders have been with Chards.

Hopefully my next order will be with them too.  Hint: please can you stock the 2022 bullion Memorial Double Sovereign...

[Petra]

8 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Yes and no.

Richard Lobel of Coincraft is older than me, but CoinCraft is a numismatic dealer only, and has a "no bullion" policy. The do not even handle new Royal Mint coins or sets, or slabbed coins.

The Royal Mint claim to have been established for about 1100 years, but they have only dealt in "collector" coins since 1970, and investment bullion coins since 2000.

So yes, I and Chards are the oldest in just about every way.

If anyone can think of a challenger, please let me know.

I would still prefer to be the youngest!

😎

😀😮👍👍👍🍺

[SidS]

24 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

CoinCraft is a numismatic dealer only, and has a "no bullion" policy. They do not even handle new Royal Mint coins or sets, or slabbed coins.

😎

Sounds like a description of me!

[ArgentSmith]

Why Are Chards So Cheap?

---

By LawrenceChard,

[ArgentSmith]

Textbook rhetorical question 😎

[Roy]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Is Chards the best coin and bullion dealer in the UK?

I'd say so, adjectively speaking of course.

😎

[James32]

Can I have the name of the person who asked "such" a question 🤔 

[Seasider]

1 hour ago, James32 said:

Can I have the name of the person who asked "such" a question 🤔 

It was @LawrenceChard

 

[Darr3nG]

3 minutes ago, Seasider said:

It was @LawrenceChard

 

Insider shenanigans!

[LawrenceChard]

3 minutes ago, Darr3nG said:

Insider shenanigans!

I have never been inside Shenanigans:

or Eden (there are at least two of them within a few hundred metres of each other in Blackpool)

😎