£600 per square meter!!!
I approached EFL Shutters to quote for plantation shutters for 2 bay and 3 casement windows. This was following their advert of 50% off shutters and having already had quotes elsewhere. Before arranging the visit, I made sure they were in the right kind of ballpark over the phone and they were (prior to any discounts). The company that came to quote seemed to be citing "Shutters Factory" however and provided brochures for them. However, all the paperwork said "EFL Shutters".
When getting the quote, I made it clear that I'm expecting at least the 50% discount that they had advertised. When they provided the quote, it was based on 14.77 square meters at £500+VAT= £600 per square meter.
This gave a total cost of £8862. This was more than double a quote I got even from Hilarys. The salesman then applied a 50% discount onto this which was still more expensive than any of the other quotes I got elsewhere with no discount. Further discounts were applied, but the principle of starting the price at more than double the competitors in order to negate the discount had already aggravated me.
The salesman said that their shutters are of much better quality. But they get them from China just like everyone else! All the other quotes I got elsewhere were from China and were also of excellent quality so there was no viable explanation given for such a price difference.
Needless to say I did not go with this company. A waste of my time.