Brewuk website "down for maintenance"

[nickjdavis]

All the others shut, there were long threads about it at the time.

Not all of them. Malt Miller continued to operate but put in place restricted ordering windows, only allowing orders to be placed which they knew they could fulfill and communicated with their customer base on a regular basis.

Brew UK offered no such order management, took more orders than they could deal with and then failed to respond to customer enquiries about order delays and status.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

All the others shut, there were long threads about it at the time.

As others have said, that is not entirely true.

 

[aolcot]

looking through my email receipts from late March -> Jun 2020, I placed online orders with THBC, MM, GEB, Angel, even Brouwland and I don't recall any issues or significant delays receiving the orders considering the conditions/restrictions the retailers were working under.

 

[Sadfield]

As others have said, that is not entirely true.

They stopped taking orders as did many others, which is essentially closing their doors, leaving everyone to jump to BrewUK.

Malt Miller not taking any more orders until they work the back log as they are on reduced staff and are waiting to see if there's further restrictions.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

They stopped taking orders as did many others, which is essentially closing their doors, leaving everyone to jump to BrewUK.

I must admit, when you said "all others shut", I thought you meant for more than just a day at a time while they cleared the backlog.
In terms of what I was really getting at, MM actually communicated with customers, even if just a blanket update. BrewUK did not do this, which as I vividly recall was the cause of most of the frustration to the customers at the time, such as me.

 

[LeeH]

Yes I remember the YouTube updates. It was well managed.

 

[Sadfield]

If MM et al were communicating better at the time, and were fully open for orders, why would people have given brewuk their business instead?

 

[AnimatedGIF]

If MM et al were communicating better at the time, and were fully open for orders, why would people have given brewuk their business instead?

The most obvious reasons are price (MM can often be more expensive, for example), products available (MM don't sell pressure barrels/accessories, for example) and I guess customer loyalty (which may have changed for some based on their experience).
There are three reasons, but I may have missed some

 

[trueblue]

I found during lockdown my orders from the maltmiller took 2 days instead of one day.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

The most obvious reasons are price (MM can often be more expensive, for example), products available (MM don't sell pressure barrels/accessories, for example) and I guess customer loyalty (which may have changed for some based on their experience).
There are three reasons, but I may have missed some

Oooh, one more I just thought of!
BrewUK don't do custom recipe kits

Edit. Silly me, that counters the point I was making

 

[nickjdavis]

If MM et al were communicating better at the time, and were fully open for orders, why would people have given brewuk their business instead?

I don't know anyone who did. But I know at least three people who were regular BUK customers who have never used BUK since, due to how BUK handled (or didnt) their orders during covid....taking weeks to not deliver something, then taking weeks further, to respond to email requests for refunds.

No one said MM were fully open.....they just managed their ordering process better than perhaps anyone else, so were able to maintain a largely efficient process and got orders out to customers within reasonable time scales. Certainly once they got their process working properly there wasn't a day that they didnt "open" for business.....just that once X kg of malt had been ordered then they stopped orders being placed. This helped manage stocks and ensured that there was stock left for others.

I dont think it helped that there were suddenly a vast number of folks suddenly stuck at home all day (furloughed or just spending more time at home due to not travelling to work) who suddenly took up brewing for the first time, putting additional load on the supply chain. Some retailers managed the additional load better than others.

BUK might have been fully open....but they might as well have been shut given the difficulties in accessing their website and the delays (in the order of weeks in some instances) taken to deliver orders.

One indication of the damage done to their business was the level of activity in the BUK forums, which, whilst not as busy as say here, was plenty busy enough in 2019 and early 2020, but dropped off a cliff post covid and didnt even bounce. The forum literally died overnight in the summer of 2020.

I liked BUK as a supplier and personally I still used them after covid (no more or less frequently than I did before), and any loss of a competitor is a loss of choice to us the consumer, which is only a bad thing, and I'm sorry to see it go...if indeed it has gone.

 

[Caramel Ox]

Well I did drive by today but learnt nothing - it was after hours anyway and was shuttered as you would expect. No signs pinned to the door or anything.

 

[Sadfield]

I dont think it helped that there were suddenly a vast number of folks suddenly stuck at home all day (furloughed or just spending more time at home due to not travelling to work) who suddenly took up brewing for the first time, putting additional load on the supply chain.

That's the point I made in my initial post.

The lockdown comments are a bit harsh. They got swamp with orders from new customers when all the other retailers shut.

Shut. Not fully open. Tomayto. Tomarto.

 

[Summer Lane Brewery]

I had a difficult situation with Brew UK regarding a refund for a glycol chiller which they’d advertised as being at a lower price than any of their competitors. I complained when I found it on other sites at a much lower price at the same point in time. It took me 6 months to get anything other than “you’ve already got the lowest price” as a response and then finally they agreed to refund me. I sent the chiller back (at my expense) and then they didn’t refund me or respond to any of my emails for many months. Finally I took them to the small claims court, got a CCJ in my favour and got a full refund including all the additional court costs. I used to buy fairly regularly from them and their service was always good but I wouldn’t touch them now.

 

[Braumeister]

I had a difficult situation with Brew UK regarding a refund for a glycol chiller which they’d advertised as being at a lower price than any of their competitors. I complained when I found it on other sites at a much lower price at the same point in time. It took me 6 months to get anything other than “you’ve already got the lowest price” as a response and then finally they agreed to refund me. I sent the chiller back (at my expense) and then they didn’t refund me or respond to any of my emails for many months. Finally I took them to the small claims court, got a CCJ in my favour and got a full refund including all the additional court costs. I used to buy fairly regularly from them and their service was always good but I wouldn’t touch them now.

That is outrageous, I’m glad you got a refund but that must have been very unpleasant. If that’s how they treated some of their customers…

 

[Summer Lane Brewery]

Yes, it was an unpleasant experience made worse by the fact it was £900 not refunded. It eventually cost them hundreds of pounds more when all the costs and interest to me was factored in. In one if the very few discussions I managed to have with them, the person I was talking to did say some things about interactions between the two directors being very difficult and that one was no longer active in the business. It was a very out of character episode as I had previous experience with them that was above and beyond what I would reasonably have expected (they sourced a missing power supply on a piece of Blichmann kit that I didn’t buy from them and supplied it foc including the shipping as a “goodwill gesture to a regular customer”. It’s a shame an otherwise decent home brew supplier has gone this way but there are other great suppliers to fill the hole.

 

[RichardM]

This is a review on https://www.yell.com/biz/brew-uk-ltd-salisbury-6082089/#reviews

After working there I can give you the honest run down on the business the owner a lady does not care about customers she will hold your refund money as long as possible she robs Peter to pay Paul she sells stock she does not hold rips people off get the staff to lie constantly will sell you out if dare stick peels date stamps off sell the wrong hops as changes labels guys don’t buy from here there better out there !!!! Feel sorry for the staff having to lie they hate it but there forced lie or dismissal

 

[Braumeister]

The Trustpilot reviews reveals some shocking tales too. Quite a contrast to the good service from the likes of The Malt Miller, CML and Brewkegtap.

 

[Summer Lane Brewery]

They won’t last long if that’s their attitude to customers. Thanks for sharing your experience from the inside.

 

[Guzzie]

The Trustpilot reviews reveals some shocking tales too. Quite a contrast to the good service from the likes of The Malt Miller, CML and Brewkegtap.

Never thought of checking companies using Trustpilot - checked out a few of the online homebrew sites I order from - the three you mention are all good but two other "big" sites the reviews make interesting reading. One of them I will not be ordering from again !!
thanks for the info - G