As you would expect from the UK’s biggest plumbing, heating and bathroom wholesaler, F & P goes out of its way to offer independent merchants and retailers a one-stop shop and next-day delivery service solution so that they can concentrate on providing their customers with the quickest possible quality service standards.
Constantly investing in its distribution and delivery systems, one of F & P’s recent innovations is the launch of a brand new £9.6 million distribution centre, just one out of nine in its network and the latest example of how it is committed to providing the most cutting-edge infrastructure to guarantee the widest range of products and best delivery service, with daily deliveries and competitive pricing. As well as the industry’s widest selection of branded plumbing, heating and bathroom products, F & P also carries nearly 4,000 products in its own-branded Pro heating, Fresssh Bathrooms and Connections plumbing ranges, to offer merchants a higher margin alternative.
As a specialist distributor of heating products, F & P stocks a comprehensive range of both gas and oil boilers from industry-leading manufacturers. To enhance this boiler offering, the company also stocks all flues and accessories, a variety of radiators, heating controls, pumps and all necessary ancillary items for any heating system. F & P’s heating category is also complemented by a large range of gas, electric and solid fuel fires and stoves. All the major industry brands are available via the company’s proven and dedicated next day delivery service. As the leading distributor of fires and fireplaces, F & P Wholesale aims to ‘simply deliver more’ to its customers.
F & P supplies a wide range of boilers (electric, oil, natural gas and light commercial), fires (gas and electric, plus room heaters, stoves and surrounds) and other heating products including air vents, central heating controls, central heating water treatments, pumps, radiators, towel rails, underfloor heating and water heaters. The company also supplies a range of renewables, including air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, solar cylinders and solar water heating. F & P stocks heating products from manufacturers including Adey, Alpha, Aurora, Baxi, Burley, Cistermiser, Crown, Crystal, Danfoss, Dimplex, Drayton, Fernox, Flavel, Glow·worm, Grant, Grundfos, Heatline, Heatrae Sadia, Henrad, Honeywell, Hotspot, Ideal, Keston, Main, Megaflo, Potterton, Pro, Procombi Essential, Ravenheat, Robinson Willey, Salus, Saniflo, Santon, Scalemaster, Sentinel, Siemens, Smiths, Telford, Vaillant, Valor, Viessmann, Wilo, Worcester and Zilmet.
Within the UK, F & P has a network of nine Distribution Centres (locations and contact details available online), servicing 3,800 customers with over 3,000 products (across all categories) every month. The company – which can deliver anywhere in the UK – makes 250,000 deliveries every year, to 8,500 locations nationwide. All deliveries are made on F & P’s own transport; the company has a staff of drivers and does not outsource delivery to carriers.
Within each of F & P’s centres is a team of knowledgeable and friendly staff, ready to assist customers with orders and product queries. In addition the company has a large, experienced external sales team supporting customer requirements across the country. The company offers personal account management: customers benefit from competitive pricing along with the largest field based team of Account Managers in the heating, plumbing and bathroom sector. 650,000 calls are answered every year. The company has a high staff satisfaction rate: 99 colleagues have been with the company for over 10 years.
F & P’s online ordering service complements the more traditional ordering methods, giving 24/7 access to more than 10,000 products. Once registered, online customers have access to actual net buying prices and live updates on stock levels – ensuring that they know exactly when a product will arrive, so that collections can be planned accordingly. 2,800 core products are stocked ready for next day delivery; those customers placing orders with depots or sales offices by 5pm will get next day delivery for no additional cost. The company has a selection of the most popular items available for collection; local sales offices can advise. F & P holds nearly £30 million worth of stock on an annual basis. 96,000 pallets of goods are received into warehouses, 2 million products are picked and 500,000 orders are processed each year. Many of these are for heating-related items: for example, in 2016 the company processed 207,000 boilers through goods in.
In June 2017, the company officially opened its new Southern regional distribution centre in Bedford, scaled to serve customers in the midlands and south of the UK, and make over 3,000 products available for next-day delivery. The new site – a multi-million-pound investment – forms a core part of F & P’s corporate strategy to deliver greater value to customers through shortened delivery timeframes and improved stock range and availability.
F & P Managing Director, Jed Kenrick, said of the opening: “The facility step changes our ability to service customers in the midlands and south of the UK: it means that we can not only make thousands more products available via next-day delivery – but that every one of these can be delivered by our own drivers, rather than by carriers.
“This means that customers anywhere in the country can now access 11,000 plumbing, heating and bathroom products from Primaflow and F & P, delivered carefully by one of our specialist delivery colleagues on one of our own vehicles.
“It represents the second step of a 3-step modernisation programme that has seen a similar programme in the north of the UK to consolidate stock holding and picking to our Wakefield regional distribution centre. The third step will be completed later this year.
“This programme gives us the physical and system infrastructure to serve existing customers better and expand our business into new customer channels and new product categories.”
F&P Wholesale, Eldon Way, Crick, Northamptonshire, NN6 7SL info@fpwholesale.co.uk / www.fpwholesale.co.uk / twitter.com/F_P_Wholesale