So Cameron will force Electricity providers to switch customers to cheapest tariff

[d000hg]

If your business model relies on customer laziness, your business is crap.

[doodab]

If your business model relies on customer laziness, your business is crap.

That could cover anything from labour saving household appliances through cars to restaurants, takeaways and ready meals. Even Amazon.

[BrilloPad]

When do they have to have such a bemusing array of tariffs?

[xoggoth]

Don't know if anyone has use a multimeter on their elec recently but our "240V" system is actually only 220V. The bastards snuck in an 8% drop in voltage and hoped nobody would notice.

[d000hg]

That could cover anything from labour saving household appliances through cars to restaurants, takeaways and ready meals. Even Amazon.

I don't mean a business which caters to laziness, but one which relies on laziness.

[d000hg]

When do they have to have such a bemusing array of tariffs?

Did you mean 'why'? Well for a start the old tariffs still exist while people are using them so that means there are always loads floating around.

Then there are genuinely different use cases so for one person a higher £/KWh with lower standing price is cheaper, etc.

Plus fixed rates which are just like fixing your mortgage.

[DodgyAgent]

If your business model relies on customer laziness, your business is crap.

How do UK contractors ever get work then?

[doodab]

I don't mean a business which caters to laziness, but one which relies on laziness.

I think it's a general trend these days. Presumably allocating ones finite resources to attracting new customers generates more profit than retaining most of existing ones.

[hyperD]

Feck me, Xogg's right.

It used to be about 245V in here, but I've just measured it at 221V.

The bastards are stealing our electricity! Fry them!

[ZARDOZ]

British gas margins are 5% hardly greedy. The problem is that people are too lazy to shop around and look for the lowest prices. They prefer to moan instead, and this stupid government (who like labour have no understanding of how business works) pander to it.

The margin isn't 5% though, it is between 40% and 80% higher than that.
In the first half of the current year, the margin earned by British Gas - that is profit as a percentage of sales - was 7.2%, compared with 6.9% in the first six months of last year, and 8.9% in the whole of 2010.

Looking around for the lowest prices; as someone pointed out is a waste of time, they are much of a muchness and as they fluctuate between cheapest and most expensive, any savings are soon wiped out. The whole system is no better than a price fixing cartel.