In today’s world the majority of products can be found manufactured by overseas companies. Usually selling at an extremely low price on the internet, online shops such as ebay are full of these low cost international sellers. So what is the incentive to buy British?
The first and most important of all is quality. Taking just one market place into account, the car parts industry, we have found evidence of poor quality when purchasing low cost products.
Viper Performance, a Midlands based hose manufacturer, conducted some basic tests on some cheap hoses. They found that they tend to contain a lot of fillers, and de-laminate easily or in some cases are not cured properly.
Viper had heard from clients in the past that they can get hoses at half the price elsewhere. Although this can be true, they found that these hoses are quite different in quality, material and dimensions. For a just few pennies or pounds more you get a quality UK manufactured product. Saving a few pounds is simply not worth compromising on quality when your engine is worth thousands of pounds.
Another element of buying British is customer service. When your only means of communication is email or an expensive phone call getting good customer service is difficult. Viper Performance have a UK showroom, which is manned by professionals. This means that not only will you have a face to face contact, should you need it, they are on hand to provide advice about which product is best for you. This service is invaluable and simply cannot be matched by companies thousands of miles away.
Finally, the UK manufacturing process is trusted and you can be sure it is safe. This means both the product that you are buying is sound and the people who have made it are treated fairly. For Viper Performance this means that every one of their hoses is hand crafted, checked and rejected if there is a defect or incorrect build of any kind detected by their quality control team.