As you may be aware I’m a bit of a Ryobi Man fundamentally due to my Brother-in-Law Keith who lent me his Rotary Saw to try out before I bought one to cut up all the roof joist that I scrounged from the building site behind my plot when they started making alterations and extending the height of an industrial unit and converting it to residential.
I keep an eye on some Ryobi Facebook groups and I have to say Ryobi in the UK really need to get their act together when we see the prices and availability of Ryobi equipment in the rest of the world.
I became aware of the Christmas Offer from Ryobi and decided to have a look
So basically there is a list of Eligible Starter Kits/ Retailers that can be found on the RyobiChristmas Promotion Web Site, and you buy one and then apply for you Free Gift power Tool from this selection.
These are the tools that are available for you to select from. As can be seen there is a huge difference in the value of what you can claim, and quite frankly one would like to maximise the cost benefit of the promotion.
The cost of these tools ranges from £6:30 to £45.95 using the prices from CBS as a guide as there are no RRP Quoted on the Ryobi UK / Europe site only links to where you can purchase the item from. So realistically no one in their right mind would select the £6.30 Charger and why would one settle for a tool costing £24 when there are tools worth between £38 - £45
For allotment Holders who are going to need to maintain grass paths and have a garden buying a One+ Starter Kit and claiming the Grass Trimmer is ideal, what one needs to do is to decide which Starter Kit and where to get it from for the cheapest cost.
So to save you all surfing and looking I have done it for you and here they are in Specification order
Ryobi RLM18X41H240 18V ONE+ Cordless 40cm Lawnmower Starter Kit (2 x 4.0Ah)
£397.95 CBS
£399.99 Very (3 Negative Reviews 1 Positive)
£499.99 Littlewoods
£383.00 Machine Mart
£324.99 Amazon (Limited Time Deal
Me thinks Littlewoods have made an error on their web site
Ryobi RLM18C36H225 18V ONE+ Hybrid 36cm Lawnmower Starter Kit (2 x 2.5Ah)
£347.95 CBS
£382.49 Amazon
£350.95 Tooled Up
Ryobi RLM18X33H50 18V ONE+ Cordless 33cm Lawnmower Starter Kit (1 x 5.0Ah)
£199.00 Homebase
£199.99 CBS
£229.95 Tooled Up
£189.58 CPC
NONE in Stock Powertool Mate although listed on the Ryobi site
Tooled Up - Not Direct Product Code on web site built up by adding battery & Charger
Ryobi RLM18X33B40 18V ONE+ Cordless 33cm Lawnmower Starter Kit (1 x 4.0Ah)
£163.67 Amazon
Ryobi RLM18C33B25 18V ONE+ Cordless 33cm Lawnmower Starter Kit (1 x 2.5Ah)
£180 Argos
Now a couple of observations from my research, I have to ask why would anyone buy the RLM18C33B25 from Argos for £180 when you can get same lawnmower with a 4.0Ah Battery from Amazon for £163.67?
My choice (had I not already got the Grass Trimmer) would be to buy the RLM18X33H50 and although £10 cheaper from CPC I would more than likely get it from Homebase, it’s 99p cheaper than CBS and if picked up from the store you have eliminated the possibility of damage in delivery, which is a common problem these days.
£240.95 Worth of Tools for £199 RLM18X33H50 and the Ryobi OLT1825M on Christmas Promotion as a Free Gift worth £41.95.
<<<< There are links to all the Ryobi Retailers on the left panel of this Blog
Now, I have been waiting for the price of the Ryobi OLM18X33H 18V ONE+ Cordless 33cm Lawnmower (Zero Battery) to drop below £ 129.95 CBS as I already have a Cordless Grass Trimmer that I bought from Homebase when they were closing down and managed to get one with a battery and charger for less than the cost of the battery and charger.
Unfortunately Ryobi bargains like that in the UK a few and far between, and it's sad when it's due to closure of a local store.
The current cost of a Body only (Zero Battery) Mower is
£ 129.95 CBS - Ryobi OLM18X33H 18V ONE+ Cordless 33cm Lawnmower (Zero Battery)
£ 68.95 CBS - Ryobi RB18L50 18v 5.0Ah Li-ion Battery
£ 27.95 CBS - Ryobi BCL1418H 14.4V-18V Dual Charger
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£ 226.85 When bought together so approx. saving buying as a starter kit with a price of say £ 199 is £27.85 or the cost of the charger.
Reverse Engineering the cost above including the Dual Charger
£ 199.00 Homebase RLM18X33H50 18V ONE+ Cordless 33cm Lawnmower Starter Kit
£ 68.95 CBS - Ryobi RB18L50 18v 5.0Ah Li-ion Battery
£ 27.95 CBS - Ryobi BCL1418H 14.4V-18V Dual Charger
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£102.10 I would propose that as a more realistic price for the Zero Battery option inclusive of VAT than £129.95 when one considers the other battery mower are selling with the specifications and at the prices listed below, and some of them also come with a Grass Trimmer:-
£ 99.99 Einhell Power X-Change GE-CM 18/30 Li 18V 30cm Cordless Lawnmower 1 x (3.0Ah) from Toolstation
£ 149.99 Yard Force 40V 32cm Cordless Lawnmower Plus Cordless Grass Trimmer with ONE Lithium-ion Battery & Quick Charger LM G32 + LT G30 No 7 10 Best Battery Powered Lawnmowers - November 2019 , UK
£ 148.00 Flymo Mighti-Mo 300 Li Cordless Battery Lawn Mower, 40 V, Cutting Width 30 cm from Amazon No 3 10 Best Battery Powered Lawnmowers - November 2019 , UK
£ 210 WORX WG927E Dual 20V Battery 34cm Cordless Lawn Mower & 18V (20V MAX) Cordless Grass Trimmer Winner of 10 Best Battery Powered Lawnmowers - November 2019 , UK
Hopefully Ryobi will re evaluate they pricing policy for zero battery models next year especially in the gardening Mower market looking at whats available above. There is a lot of competition out there and the one battery for all is now very common place, and it's a more level playing field and quite frankly Ryobi have lost the lead they once had.
At the moment for me as an owner of the items above and a number of starter kits and batteries & Ryobi Grass Trimmer already the incentive merit to purchase a Body only model at the current cost is not there.
I have been evaluating perhaps buying a mower starter kit from the above Ryobi list but would not want anything with less than a 4Ah Lion Battery.
I did muse purchasing the Ryobi RLM18X33B40 from Amazon for £163.67 and select a gift from what's left but there is nothing there that I have not already got and that I'm desperate to own. Then one worries that as this model is an end of line model that no other Retailer is selling it has been in the warehouse for some time and what shape is the battery in and how long is it likely to last.
Umm I think I may wait for Argos to discover that their model is not selling and see if they half price it in the January sales because this promotion is going to do nothing for them if the end user looks at what's available. so for the moment it looks like I'm using the Ryobi Grass Trimmer I already have and the Manual Push Mower that I got off Freecycle on the allotment.
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