How many of you are buying your refrigerant 410a or R-22 cylinders one, two, or three at a time? Well, I have news for you. STOP! You’re throwing money down the drain!
1) Competitive Pricing Available
Well, this is an obvious one, but you will end up saving quite a bit per cylinder when you buy a pallet of forty cylinders at a time. Depending on where you’ve been buying and who you have been buying from you can save upwards of $5, $10, or even $20 a cylinder. So, doing the math you could potentially save $800.00 by purchasing in pallet quantities rather than individual jugs.
The savings can increase even more if you buy in multiple pallet quantities. Depending on your size, some locations can handle five pallets, some ten, and some even a full trailer load of refrigerant. The savings on trailer load orders can be quite significant to your company. You can also mix and match a trailer load with varying types of refrigerant. You could do 10 pallets of R-22 and 10 pallets of R-410a that way you have your bases covered.
2) Pricing Security and Increased Margins
I mentioned pricing above but another factor to look at is the security in pricing you get when you purchase by the pallet. Refrigerant/Refrigerant is a commodity and the pricing can change in an instant. I’ve seen it jump $30-$40 a cylinder in a week.
You never know when the next big increase is going to hit. Buying in bulk ensures you and your company that your pricing is secure and stable even if the market sky rockets. Not only that, but it also opens up the window of making increased margin when the market goes up. Or, if you are in a bidding situation where every dollar counts you get an edge against the competition with your lower priced refrigerant.
If you are considering buying for pricing security I would highly recommend to buy in the winter months of December or January. The demand is at it’s lowest here in the States at this point in time and you typically will not find a cheaper price throughout the year. In the hottest summer months I have seen prices double R-134a.
3) Peace of Mind
Quite a few contractors do not keep a stock pile of refrigerant on hand, most buy when they need. But, what happens if you have a run on your refrigerant and you realize that your inventory is now depleted? Now you have to go to your supplier and pay an arm and a leg just to get a jug and get you out of a bind.
When buying in bulk you eliminate this potential problem by having a surplus of supply on hand and ready to go. Refrigerant is not going to go ‘bad,’ so if you have some left over from a previous big buy no harm is done. In fact year over year refrigerant pricing goes up, so if you do have old inventory you most likely have a lower cost than everyone else in the market.
4) No Freight Charges for Pallet Deliveries
Did I mention that all pallet orders have freight pre-paid? No more paying shipping costs for smaller orders. We’ll send a truck to your door and drop the product off with not cost to you. If you place an order let us know if you have a loading dock or if you need the truck to have a lift gate.
5) Year End Taxes and Budgets
Most of you who run businesses are familiar with year end and want to pay as little taxes as possible. What better way to minimize your tax payments than to spend some of your profits on future inventory ?
By buying a pallet or two of product right before year end you shrink your tax bill while also having product available for the next year’s business. I know we’re already in January of 2015 but it is definitely something to keep in mind when year end sneaks up this year.
Conclusion
There are a lot of pros to buying refrigerant in bulk to you and your company as listed above and the only con is putting up with the initial investment to bring the product in.