Designer Radiators: How I saved over £1200 by going direct

After working out the heat requirement I knew what my minimum BTU requirements were I could filter my search more accurately.

For the hallway and dining room I needed the largest horizontal double radiators. These spaces were pretty large and I already found the dining room could never get to temperature (which I will post about in the future). The bedrooms had a significantly lower requirement so I had the flexibility of using single panel radiators if i wanted to.

Brick and mortar shops

I checked the likes of physical brick and mortar shops as this would ideally be the easiest way to deal with warranty issues down the line.

The first place I checked out was Wickes. To get the designer radiators from here I would need the following

• Wickes designer radiator at £580
• A smaller equivalent at £420

The fourth radiator was a low profile one for under the window. I decided to use a trade one for that with it being a spare room, (sorry guests!)

Total cost £1580

The total cost for three designer radiators from Wickes would then come to £1580. That’s not including any valves to get them hooked up to the central heating. For me it would be physically impossible to afford these without aid.

The other problem was that these radiators were undercutting my minimum BTU requirement, so it would be a lot of money for radiators that would struggle to heat the room up! I checked Screwfix and B&Q but was finding similar results.

Online suppliers

The next step I thought would be to check the likes of Victorian plumbing, Victoria Plum, Soak and other similar websites. I’ve used a few of these before and I have saved money when renovating the bathroom. The prices went like this:

Victorian Plumbing-

• Matt black 1.4 metre width £606.
• White 1.4 metre width £329
• White 1.1 metre width £249

Total cost £1184

So the total cost is £1184 and there is a bit of a saving. This makes sense with these suppliers have lower overheads. The benefit is also these designer radiators would actually supply the minimum required heat I would need.

Designer Radiators from eBay

There is a plethora of choice on eBay. Everyone and their mum are drop shipping designer radiators straight from the manufacturers in China. It’s also hard to gauge the feedback when the sellers sell thousands of other items. I’m pretty certain that the supplier is the same due to the stock images being awfully similar and the prices differing by a couple of pounds.

Cross referencing TrustPilot

So the differentiating factor is after sales service and warranties. I almost ended up buying from an eBay shop that had great reviews. The problem was I decided to Google their name to find Trustpilot reviews and found it littered with 1 star reviews. So this meant having to go back to other eBay shops to find out whether they had good TrustPilot ratings or not.

The discovery I made was the reason this particular seller had great eBay reviews but terrible TrustPilot was due to their business operating a two pronged approach to the market. They would have an eBay store that looks to operate independently but actually have a dedicated website. Some of these would use varied names of their brand or just the same one.

A step too far? Checking Companies house

I realise that I was going to the nth degree to suss out the safest way to buy a few radiators. Firstly I found one of these eBay shops and checked where they were dispatching their products from. Secondly, using this address I found on Google Maps what businesses operated out of there. Checking that brand name on Companies House revealed they used one name on eBay and a different one for their dedicated website. The CEO would be the same person for both fronts.

This is the interesting bit. The dedicated website had amazing TrustPilot reviews so I knew they were legitimate. The products on the website and the eBay store were exactly the same

But the price difference was a few hundred pounds per radiator! I even rang the website number and asked about the eBay store and it’s pricing. The customer rep on the phone seemed reluctant to talk about it but confirmed it.

I believe some of these suppliers do it to capture some of the competition on eBay even though the margins will be significantly lower. Their main income on the designer radiators will come directly from the website sales.

So the price?

At the time of purchasing (Jan 2020), this is what I managed to acquire

• Flat Panel Designer Radiator Black, double panel, 1.5 metre length £119
• Flat Panel Designer Radiator White, double panel, 1,5 metre length £119
• Flat Panel Designer Radiator White, double panel, 1.2 metre length £81

Designer radiators total price : £319

For 3 designer radiators. All three cost lower than one from any of the other supply methods, and several hundred saved from going on eBay rather than the suppliers own website! I noticed after I rang the shop the prices went up the same week. Not entirely sure if that was because I made the basic connection but they are still significantly cheaper than their website front.

As excited as I was to install them I first had to deal with a couple of problems before I could start connecting them. In addition to dealing with the problems I came to realise that I had to upgrade the cleanliness of my central heating!

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I did actually find the source of these radiators on Ali Express or Alibaba (I can’t remember). They were priced less than £50 each but as much as I love finding a bargain I knew it was time to call it a day!