Considering increasing our Firewood prices

[arboriculturist]

Due to the dramatic rise in the cost of fuel is anyone else planning to raise their Firewood prices this Autumn? An increase in overheads can be absorbed - but there's a limit !

 

In addition heating oil has shot up in price as well as electricity and many customers say they are mainly relying on just their woodburner for heating

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by arboriculturist

[aspenarb]

Two of the guys I supply timber to have put up their log prices, both now charge £100 a load. A load being what fits on the back of a small 4x4 pick up.

 

Bob

[richardwale]

Still cheap in my opinion. Back of a single cab hilux is 1.2 cube less the wheel arches, so put a little mound on it to impress the customer and it's got to be close to 1.3

[gdh]

We usually put our prices up about £5 a year on our 1.8 cube load to cover increased costs, mostly buying timber. We always do it in September and advertise the fact to encourage people to buy in the summer. 

 

It does mean our load has gone from £99-£126 in 6 years but I like to think we sell a good quality product so we've lost very few customers and gained a lot of new ones. 

 

I think to a degree people are put off by the idea of a price rise more than the actual amount but I imagine putting £20 a load on would prove that very wrong.

[gdh]

Just doing a few sums out of interest and heating oil is around 5p a kwh at the moment, that's the same as we charge for woodchip for boilers. Firewood is less efficient so would be considerably more expensive so although we have a lot of customers who rely on fires I can't see many others switching away from oil soon. 

[arboriculturist]

5 minutes ago, gdh said:

Just doing a few sums out of interest and heating oil is around 5p a kwh at the moment, that's the same as we charge for woodchip for boilers. Firewood is less efficient so would be considerably more expensive so although we have a lot of customers who rely on fires I can't see many others switching away from oil soon. 

I think what people are tending to do is not heating the whole house with their oil fired heating system, especially in the less severe cold weather. They are just using the woodburner and that does give them a saving.

 

[arboriculturist]

1 hour ago, gdh said:

We usually put our prices up about £5 a year on our 1.8 cube load to cover increased costs, mostly buying timber. We always do it in September and advertise the fact to encourage people to buy in the summer. 

 

It does mean our load has gone from £99-£126 in 6 years but I like to think we sell a good quality product so we've lost very few customers and gained a lot of new ones. 

 

I think to a degree people are put off by the idea of a price rise more than the actual amount but I imagine putting £20 a load on would prove that very wrong.

A £5 increase seems to have little effect on customer orders - if you were to hold off on price rises then increase by 10 or £15 I think you would take a hit.

Maybe new customers tend to look for the lower price suppliers, but if you are supplying a higher quality product then people seem to be prepared to pay a little more especially if they are an existing customer who knows your product.

[gdh]

9 minutes ago, arboriculturist said:

I think what people are tending to do is not heating the whole house with their oil fired heating system, especially in the less severe cold weather. They are just using the woodburner and that does give them a saving.

 

That's true, like us, it's probably cheaper to gather round a fire in one room than have oil heating everything. 

[rovers90]

I went from £90 to £100 last November and lost one customer (who I was actually happy to loose!!).

 

But with rising costs, etc I am considering increasing to £110 from 1 Sept. That is for a loose cubic metre load, hardwood, naturally seasoned.

[Khriss]

God - it seems dear, £100 cube , but years of cutting yr own , you forget the cost , part of the job perk , however if yr in it as a business , its loaded with costs :/ K