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Old 29th Jun 2018, 5:10 pm   #61
Ambientnoise
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

Interesting thread, particularly for someone not from the trade. Can I ask about warranties offered to retailers/rental outlets by manufacturers or wholesalers ? I imagine there would have been a high risk to the retailer if no warranty was offered ? Or perhaps the risk was taken for the prices offered ? How was any reimbusement given to retailers/rental outlets ?

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Old 29th Jun 2018, 5:16 pm   #62
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

Hi Frank,
indeed I did. But it does prove that some wholesalers were working on similar profit margins as the retailers and the wholesaler didn't have the worries of having to provide back service for their customers.

In the late nineties (or was it the early noughties?) DER became DER Direct and started out renting cheap TVs of far east origin charging something like 6 pounds per month. Minimum rental period eighteen months, the company would have recouped their costs in that length of time.

But really the game was up for TV rental by then and I guess the bosses knew it.

DFWB.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 5:22 pm   #63
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Originally Posted by Ambientnoise View Post
Interesting thread, particularly for someone not from the trade. Can I ask about warranties offered to retailers/rental outlets by manufacturers or wholesalers ? I imagine there would have been a high risk to the retailer if no warranty was offered ? Or perhaps the risk was taken for the prices offered ? How was any reimbusement given to retailers/rental outlets ?

Tks

Ken
That's an interesting point. Did many of the big rental firms and retailers for that matter opt out of the manufacturers' warranties to squeeze out a lower price for the TVs they buying in?

DFWB.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 5:35 pm   #64
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

The law changed in the late 60’s was it or early 70’s that placed the responsibility on the retailer for any guarantee. UK set makers generally would honour replacement parts for 12 months except CRT and valves which were covered by the CRT / valve maker very often 12 months and 3 months.
The retailer usually gave a 12 month guarantee and supplied the labour/ transport etc.

Most Colour CRT’s could have a 3 year paid for extension to give 4 years cover.

Other makers guarantees came along with different lengths of time but 12 months was regarded as minimum.

Memories or returning faulty valves to Mullard and Mazda, lots of information required for each valve. I used to save them until I had a reasonable number to return. Never had any declined.

Pinnacle valves came along and supplied us with valves only charging at the end of the month for any used, and refill the shelf with new valves. Twelve months guarantee on the valves and never had a quibble on returns.

Cannot comment on what the large rental companies did but it is quite possible the took a lower price and sorted the guarantee themselves.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 5:50 pm   #65
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

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Granada were a big company, buying in bulk, a badge would have to be fitted, the factory could easily fit whatever the buyer wanted with the number of items being purchased. Cost of a different badge I don’t think would have been a consideration.

Badge engineering has been around a long time.
Granada also used Finlanda for their Finnish built TVs.

Baird was used by Radio Rentals for some of their rental sets.

The Co-op used Defiant for their TVs to rent, but I simply used they own name, complete with the "cloverleaf" logo.

I guess when buying in bulk they could specify to have their own badging added.
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 1:02 pm   #66
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There was quite a risk in the early days of colour TV of buying ex Granada sets, when they first came on the market they were about £60, probably more than I was earning in a week so there was always the worry of a duff CRT but fortunately I never had one. I was on a very steep learning curve on colour decoders though - even bought myself a scope.

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Old 30th Jun 2018, 3:30 pm   #67
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

The step change in TV broadcasting -- with the simultaneous arrival of colour, a new scanning rate, a new frequency band and transistors -- would have been too much for the cowboys to cope with. With colour, you can't just change a valve and expect it to work .....
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 4:12 pm   #68
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

Julie is correct. Each stage of progression helped to get rid of the cowboy telly fixers, transistors, 625 and colour all helped to chase the bad guys out of the trade. However, in the eighties it was amazing how many video repair "experts" turned up in the industry.

DFWB.
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 5:22 pm   #69
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

In the early 70’s I taught a practical evening class for the finals of the C&G course 48 at the local Tech college.
It was good to see the decent skills that were in the trade, I think most employers were looking for Course 48 plus the colour module, later to be replaced by I think the C&G course 222 and 224.

Those courses long abandoned by Futher Education replaced by other perhaps more suitable ones.
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 8:17 pm   #70
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

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In the early 70’s I taught a practical evening class for the finals of the C&G course 48 at the local Tech college.
It was good to see the decent skills that were in the trade, I think most employers were looking for Course 48 plus the colour module, later to be replaced by I think the C&G course 222 and 224.

Those courses long abandoned by Futher Education replaced by other perhaps more suitable ones.
These days, the really important part of TVs is software, and the hardware's become rather generic. As such any significant 'training courses' are invariably proprietary - not that your average repair-tech is expected to need an understanding of or access to the business-confidential source-code of codecs, CAM modules or content-encryption!
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 8:38 pm   #71
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G6Tanuki wrote: "These days, the really important part of TVs is software, and the hardware's become rather generic. As such any significant 'training courses' are invariably proprietary - not that your average repair-tech is expected to need an understanding of or access to the business-confidential source-code of codecs, CAM modules or content-encryption!"

To be honest I couldn't care less about TV servicing now. I'm just glad to be out of it altogether now.
I'm an old fashioned analogue engineer in a digital world.

DFWB.
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 10:55 pm   #72
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

In the mid '80's, I used to buy small quantities of ex- rental TV's from wholesalers in Birmingham. There were plenty of wholesalers, (just look in the ad's in TV magazine from that time) in all the big towns. There was a truly colossal amount of brown cased TV's in all of them, piled high in huge warehouses. The rental companies were having a massive clear out and it shows just how many rental sets there were up to that time!
I tended to buy DER branded Thorn 9000 sets for, I seem to remember, £13 each, working! I got to know this chassis very well!!

Nick
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 12:00 am   #73
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

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In the early 70’s I taught a practical evening class for the finals of the C&G course 48 at the local Tech college.
It was good to see the decent skills that were in the trade, I think most employers were looking for Course 48 plus the colour module, later to be replaced by I think the C&G course 222 and 224.

Those courses long abandoned by Futher Education replaced by other perhaps more suitable ones.
I did my course 48 at Salford tech in '69/'70 and the colour module at night at Openshaw a year later.
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 12:19 am   #74
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Each stage of progression helped to get rid of the cowboy telly fixers, transistors, 625 and colour all helped to chase the bad guys out of the trade. However, in the eighties it was amazing how many video repair "experts" turned up in the industry.
Especially when you consider the manufacturing tolerances involved in getting a VCR to display anything at all, never mind a recognisable picture. In its heyday, the VCR must have been one of the most precisely-engineered instruments, if not the most precisely-engineered instrument, in the home; at least until computers with hard disk drives became more ubiquitous. (Mechanical Engineer: Can't be all that precise, if they still work after an Elec. Eng. has touched them! Electronics Engineer: I'm not rising to the bait this time. Why don't we go and laugh at some mathematicians for calling the square root of -1 i instead of j ? Civil Engineer: Anything's got to be better than having all these eco-warriors around!)

I guess more or less the same thing must have happened with the VCR cowboys, as video cassette mechanisms and power supplies evolved over the years; it would be easy to get left behind if you weren't serious.
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 10:26 am   #75
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I had no qualifications when I started in the mid fifties but there was such a shortage of TV engineers that if you could demonstrate that you could repair one you could get a job, in the independent shops anyway.

I did go to Radio Rentals for a job at one time and passed the interview but didn't take the job as I didn't really want to leave the shop I was at and the boss didn't want me to leave either, we were almost in tears, so he gave me a rise and I stayed.

I had an obsession with radio even at primary school and had read up everything I could find, I started repairing the neighbours' radios while I was still at school closely followed by their TV's so I had a fair amount of experience by the time I left school.

The only qualification I have gained was the RAE which wasn't too difficult as it was basically based on the knowledge I had already acquired but the Morse was hard work!

I enjoyed my early days in the trade immensely, valve technology was easy, apart perhaps for Philips, I managed to grasp transistor circuitry when it came along and early IC applications but when it went digital I lost the plot and like Fernseh said, I rather lost interest and was near to retirement anyway. I have repaired a couple of digi power supplies but I'm not really bothered now.

Peter
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 6:26 pm   #76
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

Nobody has anything repaired today. The local dump has a massive skip filled with flat screen TV's that has to be replaced every few days.

Like Peter, I lost all interest in servicing at the beginning of 2000 and closed the shop in 2002. I have never looked back and very much enjoy me retirement. I had a very happy intensive 40 years with my own shop as I have recorded on this Forum. Happy Days! gone forever.
Receivers are often replaced due to the 'wrong socket' and are treated very much as a disposable item. Looking at the prices in the supermarkets who can blame them?

It's not just TV receivers. Practically every tool, kitchen appliance, lawnmower and even the car are sliding down the same slope.

Where it will all end no one will know.

Recycling is a waste of time and energy, it just makes wasteful disposal more acceptable. We just need to use about 60% less of everything we buy. It won't happen. John.
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 6:52 pm   #77
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Recycling is a waste of time and energy, it just makes wasteful disposal more acceptable. We just need to use about 60% less of everything we buy. It won't happen.
Off topic anecdote, but it does illustrate the prevailing attitude.

When I worked in a school I frequently grumbled at pupils about wasting paper and toner. Often the response was "But Sir, it's not really being wasted. I put the stuff I don't want in the recycling bin" as if that magically turned back into the supplies they'd just consumed.
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 7:47 pm   #78
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We are of course encouraged to buy and consume by the powers that be because they make money out of it.
If they really cared about the environment the freight would be on the railway you wouldn't be able to get a flight for next to nothing (probably less than your mass costs the airline in fuel) products would be packed in paper not a polystyrene tray plus cardboard covered in non recyclable plastic..
I heard that a car causes more pollution during it's manufacture than it ever creates being used in it's lifetime which means that the older a car gets the 'greener' it becomes....
Every time someone buys a new one everyone in the chain of supply makes money and pays their tax and VAT on it. The same applies to electrical goods of course so if freeview does a software upgrade that your 10 year old Panasonic hasn't got the space in its processor and the TV guide packs up you nip out to buy a new TV! Simple! everyone is happy apart from the poor old planet of course but who really gives a damn when the neighbours see the nice new telly (or Audi on the drive)…

Years ago my mate married a girl who's parents were a little...well, rough.
One day Reg(her father) said to me "so you fix videos do ya?" "well yoo woddent make much outa me.. cuz if my video packs up I'd just chuck it aat the winda and get a noo won" Oh how we laughed at stupid ignorant old Reg...
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 8:15 pm   #79
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Default Re: The Economics Of Renting Versus Credit on TV's

Modern TV sets are labor intensive just to get the covers off and back on again.
Then there is the parts if you can get them.
Modern TVs are not worth the trouble of a repair.
If they could be sent to a part of the world where something could be cobbled up from them then perhaps they might be worth something.
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Old 1st Jul 2018, 8:16 pm   #80
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Nobody has anything repaired today. The local dump has a massive skip filled with flat screen TV's that has to be replaced every few days.
I celebrate this!

We've managed to reach a point where consumer-electronics are cheaper to replace-with-new rather than employing someone to waste their time repairing them (with no guarantee that the time/human-cost spent on problem-investigations and repair-resolution will be a lasting success).

Rejoice!! Would you seek to repair a lightbulb?

In times-past, my parents rented their TV from Radio-Rentals. They'd had decent service over the years but some time around 1968 RR replaced their failing TV with an obviously "reconditioned" GEC: it had signs of wear around the tuning-control!

I was utterly horrified by this, though my then upper-middle-class parents were acquiescent at - despite paying premium rates for the rental - being palmed-off with an "obviously ex-Council-house" telly.

The RR area-director got to feel the telephonic and recorded-delivery-letter invective of a 15-year-old schoolboy and in a couple of days a nice new Ferguson was delivered to my parental abode.

Never tolerate second-rate.
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