Why I rarely buy French

Getting hold of stuff like tools and materials can be a total nightmare. If you try and buy locally, my experience is that you end up driving many tens of kilometres, wasting at least half a day or probably more and then end up either compromising because shops hold so little stock, or not finding what you want at all.

It’s not unusual in a builder’s merchants, for example, to find that if the shelf tray for a ½” widget is empty (because it’s the most popular) then tough luck because that’s it until new stock comes in. And the trays for ¼” and ¾” will be overflowing, but nobody has thought of doubling up on the quantity of ½” that are held in comparison.

I bought some hand cleaner locally the other day (you know, Swarfega type stuff). I had trouble finding it in the local merchant’s because I had the last tin on the shelf and that was all the stock they had.

So then you are ‘forced’ into buying on line. Buying on line in the UK and the rest of Northern Europe is quite normal and usually very easy – so much so in fact, that high-street stores in all sectors are beginning to suffer. But the French haven’t quite caught up with the trend yet. Firstly you find that there are still a huge number of ‘merchants’ who use their web sites as shop windows, the way that those in the UK used to do 20 years ago, and expect you to phone them and place an order. Doh!

And many that do sell ‘on line’ do not have a bank Merchant Account and ask you to either pay by bank transfer, which unlike the UK, for example, only your French bank can set up, so inevitably at least a 24 hour delay and lots of hassle, or by cheque. And in the latter case, they will only despatch the goods when they’ve received your cheque, which can also take two or three days to arrive.

But it’s in the delivery that they eventually get you, and here’s a prime example of why I invariably end up buying from the UK, Germany, China even – almost anywhere but France. On 18th September, the fuse blew in my old Robin electrical test meter. I was in two minds whether to chuck it away and buy a new replacement as it’s now about 25 years old, but after checking it by short-circuiting the fuse and finding that it still appeared to work and then doing an internet search for fuses, I decided that as they are so cheap, I’d buy some on line and check the results.

Stupidly, I chose a French supplier, who was quoting a delivery time of 5-7 days, long by UK standards when they’d have been popped into an envelope and sent out by mail, arriving in 2-3 days max, but livable with. But 24 hours after placing the order, see below the notification I received when the fuses were despatched yesterday.

I’ve ringed the relevant section in red. I ask you, how can any supplier seriously think that a customer is prepared to wait for a month for any item ordered on line. They must need their heads testing. Luckily the amount is not great so I’ll now get hold of a new test meter if I can locally as I need it for checking out the wiring on 28AAD, my French Weedhopper. If local prices are as outrageous as I expect them to be, then I’ll just order a new meter from China – and I bet it’ll arrive before the ruddy fuses 😐

And I’ve just done exactly that and ordered a brand new LCD multimeter from China for 4.23€ including delivery. It’ll be interesting to see if it arrives before the fuses do, but in the meantime I can short across the fuseholder of my old analogue multimeter and just use it for testing continuity. That’s mainly all that I want to do for now anyway.

Its days were numbered in any event as it seemed to be giving some anomalous readouts eg 50V for new 3.7V lithium batteries! And it also blew its fuse simply when I set it to test mains AC voltage and shoved the pins into the wall socket, so time for the bin, I think. And I just can’t be bothered to trawl around locally searching for a replacement and having a choice of just one model if I do find one 😉