It’s clear that I’m not alone in my concern about the latest glass price increases from Pilkington (and Saint Gobain) when you look at the voting in the poll I added to the website:
I’ll leave the poll on the website for anybody else who wishes to place their vote.
I was also pleased to read some of the comments from my previous post, and have included below some of my favourites below:
Dave Bingham from ConservatoryLand:
I think back 20 years ago when we paid over £18 sq.metre for standard float glass and £35+ sq.metre for standard toughened.
Of course back then we would sell for £4500 what we would now sell for £3000.
We now pay less for glass, profile, hardware and all other materials that go in to the manufacture than we did 20 years ago! I do understand however that this has partly been made possible due to modern technology and efficiency.
I always believe that everything does a full circle and that prices will be forced back up somewhat, at some point.
I’m not saying that I agree with Pilkington’s price rises, it’s no benefit to me, however I do believe that they need it. It is very bad timing though.
We always immediately pass on any increases to our customers and always will do. You’ve just got to have it for those figures to work I’m afraid.
Mike Harvey Rice from Paragon Windows
If only we could persuade every company to switch to St Gobian or similar and left Pilks on their own, we would then find find the cartel busted, Pilks would under cut the others just to win some business back but of course this will not happen, Pilks biggest customers will just negotiate a better discount and this price rise will not effect them.
Derek Stocker from Uniglaze2
I would just like to respond to the comment made by Mike Harvey-Smith that the increase will not affect the big companies, I work for a large sealed unit manufacturer and we are not immune to these price increases mainly because we have no other choice but to buy from Pilks or Saint Gobain who incidently have just announced to us that our prices will be going up by the same amount. I also understand that prices have fallen to a level that cannot be sustained and prices need to rise, but what annoys me is that Pilkington’s give us all a big price hike and then low and behold their down stream branches then attack our customers with stupid prices and they then confirm that they will not be raising their sealed unit prices, in fact I have had one today where they are including the optiwhite and the Argon gas for free and holding the prices for 6 months, if anyone can tell me that £17.00 Sq.Mt for the above product is a price that is sustainable then I will eat my hat. It is obvious to me that the independents are being squeezed out of the market. Sorry Mike I am not having a go but we are all in the same boat.
Scott Nicholas from Reflex Glass
In the last round of price fixing it was reported that anyone who had suffered from the illegal activity could claim compensation through the national courts from the guilty party.
Well everyone glass processor who had purchased raw glass material from Pilks or SGG had clearly suffered!
Did anyone actually make a claim?
No, well maybe if they had then Pilks & SGG would think twice before trying it again!!!
I urge anyone who has been sent a price increase letter from their raw material supplier (Pilks & SGG) to keep it on file, this is evidence and your ticket to having that price increase refunded next time they are in court and slapped with a big fine.
Don’t let them get away with this, we can put them on notice regarding this matter and make them so sh*t scared of all the legal claims that this type of price fixing behavior will be a thing of the past!
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I wonder how the big float glass manufacturers would feel if a group of larger sealed unit manufacturers worked together to fix the prices they were willing to pay for glass? And, would such action filter lower prices back to smaller companies?
Tags: Glass Cartel
Give it a go !
Asahi / Guardian and Saint Gobain are doing the same in the Indian market. We are expecting two new float lines within next few months after which I hope the cartel should come to an end as the supply will exceed demand.
Good luck to all
The problem with fines for the big glass companies is that there only source of revenue to pay those fines are us; it is therefore us who actually get fined! Our problem in this business is that companies are too fragmented, so that because we don’t stand together we are unheard when we complain. You will never hear the dinosaur old school federations speak out either as they are primarily funded by these glass businesses; they nearly own them! The problem is that if radical action is taken the glass companies will gang up on those making the most noise and take them out. Eitehr live with the increases or close, because as a group we don’t have the bottle to take them on.
Neil D.
If you do the maths on the potential settlement that Pilks or SGG would have to make its pretty big!
Take a large glass processor or sealed unit fabricator spending around £2milion a year on glass which has been illegaly increased in price by 40% over 18 months and then add interest to this!
The figure is good enough to see out the current recession for a couple of years…
I think there is some serious money to be claimed back here!!!