All well and good Paul, but as someone who has experience of just about every wholesaler in the land and several across Europe I have to say that CEF are not a patch on what they were 20 years ago, when you employed knowledgeable people who had respect for customers, not a bunch of spotty gob-****es (not all staff I would add). The CEF I knew as an apprentice stopped existing when Mackie Senior went to the states to start up over there and left the Sons in charge, that was when we started seeing toasters, gardens lights and all that tom foolery.
I have been into CEF branches in the sticks and found a member of staff who did not know what 25mm Galv conduit was because he had never sold any!!
I agree that Newey and Eyre and WF are not what they used to be, the only wholesaler I regularly specify or use myself is Edmundson's, I do this because of customer service and i know if they don't have it they will get it, and in an emergency they will put stuff on bikes, like contactors and other small stuff.
I feel it is a shame to see the tribulations of the Mackie family, I met the old man once when I was an apprentice when he visited the Cricklewood Branch (The one on Cricklewood Broadway), seemed like a decent chap to me, but more importantly I feel it is a shame to see a once decent wholesaler turned into a poor man's B&Q...save for the bathroom fittings of course. I sincerely hope that CEF gets back to basics, back to it's roots and returns to being a true wholesaler, dump some of this home brand tat, Proteus really is rubbish (Although all the wholesalers can have this leveled at them for their home brand tat).
Lets get back to proper wholesalers who do not deal with Joe public, employ professionals behind trade counters (I recall many retired/former sparks working for all of them when I was an apprentice) and move away from the wide boy reps who talk rubbish, promise the Earth and deliver asteroids....and normally the wrong bloody ones!!
