Hello there Mike and thank you. I must have stocked the filters - that is my honest answer. But I cannot remember much about them and I can promise you they were not what you would call one of my best sellers. My customers came in mainly for two things; bags or repairs. If it was bags they wanted, I had to try and sell up other items like new filters and attachments, even new cleaner. Heck, the customer was there so I may as well use the time as best I could. I rarely had anything to do with what you would call the older Electrolux models, because few people wanted paper dust bags for them, and if they did I would sell them a packet of Hoover junior bags as I was never one for holding too much variation in stock.
If they came in for a new hose for one which was not 3 peg, then I would have to send them home to fetch the front end cap so as to fit the adaptor, and with the removable lead people used to just bring that in to me if it needed replacement. Though many must have done lead repairs at home as I used to sell flex by the meter to lots of people. I used to sell lots of filters for the automatic 330 and 345 as there is a rear filter behind the bag which is never mentioned in the instruction book. It seriously reduces power over time. If there was a whiff of a suggestion that the customer might bring it in for a service then I would cling to that avenue. Failing that I would try to sell filters.
I do remember fitting one new filter to an Electrolux 65 though. Although my reputation locally was one of honesty, I was in business, and there were areas where one had to do what it took to look after the business I was running. Often this meant lying about what was wrong with the cleaner, although I must stress this was not like the cowboys do during a Trading Standards set-up, I mean I would sometimes say there was less wrong with the cleaner than there actually was. Burnt-out motors mainly. Say to a customer that the motor has gone, and that is it. End of story. Most customers won't have it done and even fewer came back to the shop in any great hurry to collect the dead machine, despite paying a deposit. And I would be left with a useless cleaner and time spent testing it. So, on cleaners where stock of 2nd hand motors were easily avaliable, like the Hoover Juniors, I would say it was just a poor connection or whatever, and then stick a 2nd hand motor in and charge for labour & service only.
So, back to the Electrolux 65, someone did once bring one in and the motor had well and truely gone. This was rare for this sort of machine and I knew the customer wouldn't want to pay a lot. Nor did I wish to waste time getting a new motor, fitting the convertor so that it fitted the 65, and all that went with it. So I sent the customer away and then took another 65 from out the back and put the customers front end-cap and mains lead on that. I'd taken a few pounds of a rebuilt cleaner in exchange for this 65 some months earlier, which for some reason had no lead or tools with it, and it sat out the back, I suppose in case it was needed. I put in a new filter and then telephoned the customer to say their cleaner (or what they thought was their cleaner) was ready. They paid the labour & filter charge, and off they went. It must have been at least two years later when it was bought back, with my sticker still on it, to have the mains lead replaced. The customer was very happy both times. So you see, it can be the right thing to do sometimes, everyone is a winner.
Too many people who had shops like mine were not able to view the bigger picture. They would say what was wrong with a cleaner and that would be it, a yes or no to do you want it doing or not. But then I had a good teacher as I had worked with the man who sold me the shop I owned and he would do anything for anyone, but business and money had to come first. I stocked very few genuine parts as no one cared what they bought at the margins on genuine parts were no greater. I also took every chance I had to sell more to the customer once they were inside. I sold a lot of cheap floor tools (the sort which look like the genuine Hoover oval floor tool with soft bristles) for Electrolux cylinders, just by asking the customer how they were finding the one they had. This was because the turn-over tools were liable to fall apart, the large tools like the one for the 65 were heavy and stuck to lino, and the automatic tools with self-moving bristles would always clog up and stick in carpet mode. Once asked, most customer would say that the tools had seen better days.
The pictiure of the Trident cleaner bought back a memory. A sketchy memory at that. They were sent over from Germany to be sold to UK home owners at their front door. I am not sure what the idea was, but I do know they were marketed as being Electrolux cleaners, yet being the very best that Electrolux had to offer. They were more expensive but did offer more as I am sure they came with an enhanced guarentee. In later years they started selling a very smaller compact canister type cleaner which was blue and had the automatic cordwinder. It looked like a small version of the commercial cleaners. The cleaner was no better than any other Electrolux but it was still a very good cleaner and the placement of the motor in relation to the dust bag meant that the cleaner could be very small, even though it had the same motor as the long cylinders. It was a lot easier to pull around but I did repair a couple of them and it was not so easy to get into. These cleaners had a turbine cleaning head. I am not at all certain that earlier Trident models did. I think probably not.
. Anyone have a 65 that they would like to trade for a Canadian Electrolux?
