if you want to pay 40% more
Why has the LONDINIUM I project been so controversial?
The reasons are simply commercial
Approxiamately 40% of the selling price for an espresso machine that you buy in a shop, net of taxes, is retained by the retailer
That’s fine, that is what they need to make it worth while to incur all the expenses that running a retail store entails. We are not accusing retailers of ripping you off, it is simply that there is a high cost associated with selling goods under this traditional retail model
We have been approached by many retailers in many countries to sell the LONDINIUM I through their retail stores and have simply put the decision back with them. i.e. we will happily sell you the machine but there simply is there is not the margin in our selling price of GBP1625 for us to supply to you at a price any lower than that. That is an absolute fact. You will have to make your margin from selling at a higher price than GBP1625
So despite what our competitors have tried desparately to make you believe, the LONDINIUM I is a GBP2600-2700 plus tax machine. You can chortle, scoff or dismiss it if you like but as a chartered accountant this is the hard cold commercial truth
The other thing we will not give to retailers is territorial exclusivity, which is understandably invariably sought
So thats why we get a bit hot under the collar when people who have never seen, far less used, the LONDINIUM I ignorantly place it in the same category as other machines of the same retail price
We have not hogged the retail margin for ourselves; the savings we have made in selling across the internet we have passed on as a reduction in the retail price – why wouldnt we? we want to sell as many as possible and if you believe nothing else, espresso machines have high elasticity of demand. that is to say, a small movement in price has a large impact on demand
LONDINIUM I is a GBP2600-2700 plus tax machine under a conventional retail pricing model. With this pricing we could sell through a traditional distributor-reseller model and there would be plenty of fat on the beast to engage in traditional heavy discounting and all of a sudden the hostility would evapourate because the status quo would be reinstated and everyone would go back to their respective corners
We are selling outside the conventional distribution model and as a result we are as popular as a turd in a tonic
The notion that we are a threat to the established brands and their distribution networks is based on complete paranoia
The vast majority of buyers will prefer the security of having a nearby store that they can put their machine in the car and place it in the hands of a competent technician in less than 30 minutes
Others will prefer to spend their money in their local community
These are both valid reasons
But what about all the customers who live hundreds, even thousands of miles from the nearest retail store that they are considering buying a machine from? That’s where LONDINIUM comes in. Distance selling is our core business. Its what we do with a very carefully selected range of products to ensure their suitability for sending around the globe. As a result I think you’ll find we are quite good at it – not just when it goes right like it does more than 95% of the time, but also when it goes wrong – we always sort out a transaction even if it costs us more than the transaction was worth to do so
LONDINIUM I, we are able to offer you a GBP2700RRP machine for GBP1625 because we are serious about showing that traditional lever machine technology is far superior to cutting edge high tech espresso machines as an overall ownership experience. Ironically we have utilised cutting edge technology to enable that!
The reason we have shunned the traditional distributor & reseller model is not because we enjoy picking fights, it is much more pragmatic. We have been the sole UK distributor for two very different lever machines that sold at the same price point, GBP2400 plus tax. What we learnt is regardless of what single group espresso machine you are selling, when you cross the GBP2000 plus tax threshold your sales volume dries up. We knew the only way we could bring you a machine that brought the best of Bosco and the best of the Olympia Cremina into a single machine was to direct sell it over the internet. It is the simple commerical relaity of the matter. Nothing more sinister than that. Without this approach we would have failed because we simply would not have been able to secure enough sales volume
PS – in the interests of balance we should add that the saving is less than it may seem as you need to add the cost of shipping to get your LONDINIUM I delivered to you. we ship using DHL and do not add a margin to what DHL charge us. to give you an idea of how competitive we are, here are the costs of getting a LONDINIUM I machine to you in –
Germany – GBP27.64 (typical charge for all of western Europe)
USA – GBP97.51
Canada – GBP117.53
Japan – GBP179.51
Hong Kong – GBP163.51
Australia – GBP163.51
New Zealand – GBP224.84
South Africa – GBP240.84
Brazil – GBP257.62
if you live in what DHL deems to be a remote area there is a GBP16 surcharge on the above rates
for your convenience our website now includes a currency converter on every product page and a shipping charge estimator in the shopping cart area so you can see the shipping charge before you enter your payment details
we never see your payment details, they are not held on any of our systems – they go directly to our payment provider, Paypal Merchant services, one of the largest and most sophisticated provider of such services in the world
as Head of Group Risk for a FTSE250 company in a previous life i know a little about risk management and process controls, so you can transact with LONDINIUM espresso with full confidence that your personal data is secure and will not be sold, or otherwise end up the hands of third parties
We look forward to hearing from you