February is FFX Time – Demos, D
Among most of the trades that I talk to locally, the FFX Show is one that always gets the thumbs up. From their comments it seems to boil down to these key things – deals, deals and more deals, plus enough space in the halls and stands for demos and time to chat to experts on the tools you are looking at. The free parking,
simple but reasonable catering and generous show opening hours also get some mentions but clearly, for many potential tool buyers the FFX show is a time to compare tool brands, get your hands on new tools and possibly buy them at internet comparable - or even better – prices. These confirm my prejudices a bit – I still hold the view that many, if not most, tool buyers like to handle, or even try out, the goods before they buy. Something you can do at a show but not online. It is also good to hear that FFX itself is trying to listen to its customers on things
other than just highly competitive prices. Managing Director Tim Horrell pointed to the increased number of till points compared to 2016’s show. With over 15,000 visitors in 2016 there was a need to process customers’ orders more quickly as the queues became quite long. This year payment queues were more streamlined and there seemed to be noticeably more “porters” to help customers with large orders get their goods to their cars. Also introduced this year was a range of FFX branded products. These
covered things like drill bits, screws and various blades and accessories. With many of these coming from reputable manufacturers, chances are that end users will soon pick up on the notion of quality at a reduced price.
With over 45 different stands, all the major power and hand tool brands were
represented. Festool put on its usual grand show taking up a whole corner of the Maidstone Exhibition Hall with a wide range of demos and experts to consult. The brand new Kapex KS60 mitre saw drew a lot of admirers among Festool Fans and others too. I had a wee chat with father, son and daughter Festool fans – all with Festool T-shirts and very natty work clothing. Great to see that even young kids these days can still be interested in practical things rather than simply plugging in to the web. Hitachi also had a grand corner space with different product groups being
demo’d on different benches and Metabo had a very busy stand with ‘front man’ Rob demonstrating the new Metabo tapping driver so well that there were several instant purchases once they saw how quickly tapping threads could be done. On the hand tools side I was quite taken with Irwin’s range of accessories for
their QuickGrip range of clamps. These include a great mitre clamp and a bench clamp that is very simple but very effective. Having attended all three days of the show it was interesting for me to see the
rhythms of the day. There was always a queue to get into the hall in the morning and the halls were very busy all the time with gaps for lunch and teas. I noted serious buyers doing detailed comparisons between tools and bargains, sometimes even bringing in mates and partners for a second or third opinion – but they usually left with a box or two – which is, after all – the point of a tool show. Roll on FFX 2018 – we may be more Brexit savvy by then and have different buying habits.
24 ToolBUSINESS+HIRE
www.toolbusiness.co.uk
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