So inflation is back with a vengeance. The sequence of price rises that we saw in our industry over the last 18 months have proven to be part of a far wider price movement which is gazzumping our shopping lists and corroding our savings.

All of us are very conscious of the period of price rises that we are living through. A perfect storm of factors – the pandemic, Brexit and the Ukraine war – have together pushed up the price of imported goods and, above all, energy. We have seen as many price rises in one year from some of our suppliers as we would sometimes see in five.

What impact has that had on our own pricing?

Well, we have raised prices. I guess that’s a given. But we have tried hard to keep those rises down, and manageable. We want to do our bit to battle inflation.

We have also seen more customers booking a long way in advance – we have slots available in August, but a surprising number of installations booked in November and December. People are canny – they know that the are going to need to buy granite or quartz worktops late in the year – and by paying a deposit for them now, they are locking the price in advance.

That has led us to think hard about our “deposit locks the price” policy. Can we afford to let customers book further and further ahead while we live through this period of inflation?

You can see that we have retreated a tiny bit from the policy in our latest special offer. We are only promising the Special Offer price for installations completed within 3 months of deposit payment. We simply can’t maintain such a discount on Calacatta Gold quartz worktops for any longer than that.

However, for the moment, despite the horrific inflation that we are all facing, we have decided to stick with our time-honoured policy:

Whenever we receive a definite order, confirmed by deposit, for a full installation of quartz or granite worktops, we will honour the price at time of installation.

We hope that we will never have to deviate from that policy – and we will certainly keep all customers fully informed if we are forced to.

We are Affordable Granite, the leading installer of granite and quartz kitchen worktops in Surrey, Sussex and across the South East. We want to be the best when it comes to fair pricing, honesty and straightforward dealing with our customers.  For samples, quotes and any questions connected with any aspect of worktop installation, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 01293 863992 or by email on sales@affordablegranite.co.uk/ .