Australians love Baccarat cookware. They're reasonably priced (they always seem to be on sale for 50% off), well built, easy to clean and they just work. The only maintenance they need is tightening the handle and steam vent knob every 6 months or so. Now, I don't bloody sell Baccarat products, I don't get a kick-back from them, and I don't care about your one lousy experience that makes Baccarat your chosen whipping boy for all that's wrong with the world. I'm just touting something that does its job well for us, which is extremely rare these days.
We've had our set of Baccarat saucepans (and all the other stuff that came in the box) for about 12 years. They've been treated roughly (one has a nasty scar on its butt - a souvenir from an exploding stove element), been crammed into 5 different removalist trucks and have hit the floor the exact number of times you'd expect a klutz to drop them. Well, after all that abuse I finally managed to smash the steam vent knob off one. They were starting to deteriorate, almost definitely as a result of high dishwasher temperatures.
The accident sent me on a highly irritating journey through the internet to
find spare parts. It seems that no bastard stocks them. Not even eBay sellers. I blame the evolution of JIT and Kaizen inventory practises for this, not to mention the
sheer resilience of the Baccarat product which means there's not much call for spares.
Anyway, since Baccarat is so damn popular I found loads of
posts from other people looking for the same parts without success. Eventually
I found a article by Matthew Abraham who'd tracked down the owners of the Baccarat trademark, PlayCorp. (They're huge - supplying more than 13,000 products to around 6,000 retailers such as Target, Rebel Sport, Coles, Kmart, Myer and Big W.)
After scoring the magical customer service email address I broke through to their warehouse guy (Erol), who's a really nice bloke. Erol does not require you to jump through any hoops or fill out any forms. He will take your order over the phone and then tell you the ridiculously cheap price. (They must only just cover the production costs. $5 for the steam vent assembly).
Throwing the lids away just because one part was
damaged would have pissed me off
so I'm really happy with the result.
So if you or your mates are looking for Baccarat spares here's
the details.
PlayCorp
group of companies
Warranty
and Customer Service.
7-9
Mephan Street
Footscray
3011
Tel:
03 9317 1115
Fax:
03 9317 1127
Email:
eroly@playcorp.com.au
2 comments:
Thanks for posting the contact details.
Just ordered some.
$6 per knob and $6 postage now.
Ta
Thank you for your information. I'm glad I didn't have to trawl through all the internet addresses. June.
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