"Unprofessional and extremely outdated." That was the answer we got when we told a customer that we don't offer invoices to private persons or companies. For this customer it was more important to get an invoice than to pay by card (or Swish) and save 300 SEK buying the product from us rather than from the competitor the customer wrote they would buy from instead. Naturally I don't agree that it is unprofessional or even outdated not to offer invoicing. Until a good year ago we offered invoice payment as an alternative to private persons and companies. Invoices were then around 5-10% of orders. In the beginning we "sold" the invoices to, for example, Svea, Klarna, Collector and so on, by having their payment options at checkout. Yes, you sell your receivable on the customer to them; that is how it works. We get the money "directly" (between 3 days and up to a month later, normally a week) and the company handles collecting the money from the customer. They naturally don't do this for free; invoices can carry a fee between 2.5% and perhaps up to 10%. Klarna, for example, charges today 2.99% + 4 SEK if you go by a price list I found. When we stopped using a complete payment service and went over to only Swish and card payments via Stripe, we continued to let our customers buy by invoice; it had then gone down to 1% of orders, so we thought we could handle that manually. We ran like that for a year or so and until 2022 we had very few problems with this; everyone who got an invoice paid, some perhaps after a reminder.. What we ran into in 2022 was that three companies (with large to very large invoices) dragged out their payments, despite reminders and phone calls and finally via debt collection. All went bankrupt before we could secure our money. And our receivables were very low priority, so we never got anything from the bankruptcy trustees; all of them had made a system of fleecing companies, so they had bought a lot in a short time and were not flagged in checks. This was really noticeable for us, and it was after that that we decided to offer only payment by card and Swish to all private and business customers. We also now have the possibility of paying to us via bankgiro; we do not send the order before we have received the money, but if you don't have a card/Swish, it is an option at payment.
We think these costs that we have to pay so that you can buy from us add up to a lot of money. And we would rather be able to keep lower prices for you or buy in more goods with that money than give it away to others. With Swish you pay 2-4 SEK per transfer, regardless of how large the order is. Stripe, which we have chosen for card payments, charges 1.5% (private persons) and 1.9% (business cards) + 1.80 SEK for purchases by customers within the EU. If you "save" your card with Stripe and use their service "Link", our fee becomes 1.2% + 1.80 SEK / order instead. Bank transfer is free between the banks. Our recommendation for customers who "want an invoice" is to use card payment where your bank offers a combined invoice, often with 30 days' payment terms, so it becomes the same thing as an invoice and at a lower fee..
A few product updates. Narex is not idle and is releasing quite a lot of new tools during 2024. Some can be seen in the picture above; another is, for example, a Richter lock mortise chisel, seen in the picture below. This and much else was shown at the big tool fair in Germany last week. It really is a Mecca for all tool nerds. And we are too..
Another European supplier we have is Piher from Spain. We have received quite a lot of new clamps from them. And in connection with putting up the new ones we tidied up the shop and made it clearer which clamps we have. clamps We have about 170 different clamps in all sorts of sizes and types in stock; they come from 7 suppliers that we all buy directly from. On Easter Eve we have Saturday opening again. It is the first time we are open on a public holiday, and we have no idea whether that means no one can come, or the opposite. We will tempt you with a little Easter egg competition, looking for chocolate eggs among the shelves. Should amuse everyone, big and small tool nerds alike.. We also have a few prize draws and other good and mixed things.
More than half of you visit the website via your mobile. We also sit and check quite a lot via it, and have felt that it doesn't really work. The theme we have is not entirely optimal for mobile viewing, so we have been thinking about what to do. Now we are trying a special theme for mobiles only. It doesn't change much so it shouldn't cause any problems for you. All basic functions work as they have before. But this change means we can "do/show" different things on web and mobile. That means you can adapt, for example, images so they aren't gigantic on mobile, and so on. We are working on this further, and we hope it will make your visits to us more satisfactory. We are very grateful for all feedback, big or small, about what you think of the shop.
We have also tried to make it clearer at checkout when it comes to shipping, as we had a few who misunderstood what shipping to choose. We hope it feels clearer now too.
I thought I would remind you that there are advantages to creating an account with us. You get slightly cheaper shipping or free shipping, you can save your shopping cart and you can use the wish list. Customers have actually shown me the latter; I had no great idea what it was. In short, it is about being able to gather your future wish tools in the wish list and there having better control over whether they can be bought or not. And when you want to shop you can add them to the cart from there.
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