No.1 Gold Dealer in the UK - Voted "2017 UK Bullion Dealer of the Year"

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who voted for Chard in this year's Bullion Dealer of the Year competition. 

Chard are voted 2017 UK BULLION DEALER OF THE YEAR!

Chard of Blackpool are voted the 2017 UK Bullion Dealer of the Year

Chard have been voted the UK Bullion Dealer of the Year for the third year running. Hosted by Bullion.Directory, the Bullion Dealer of the Year awards featured over 850 bullion dealers from five countries taking part in the fight to be voted Bullion Dealer of the Year.

This year, the competition was the most intense ever, with over 100 candidates in Britain battling for the most prestigious title in the industry. Being up against the giants of the bullion industry such may have had some candidates throwing in the towel before the final, but we're made of tough stuff up North and although we may be small in comparison, we are fierce - in a nice, friendly, won't give up kind of way. 
 
With your support and messages from customers all over the world saying that they had voted for Chard, we threw ourselves into it and scored a hat-trick! 11,227 votes were cast with the final result showing that for a third year in a row there has been a different runner-up. In 2015 it was BullionByPost, in 2016 it was Sharps Pixley, in 2017 it is Physical Gold. 

The 2017 UK Bullion Dealer of the Year Results

Now, we are not the UK's biggest bullion dealer but we're probably the oldest and we try our hardest to be the best. Our customers are the driving force behind the growth of Chard and your feedback helps us to improve our services and shape our future. 

Our larger competitors have bigger turnovers, customer bases and mailing lists which makes it even more remarkable that we won. So, when we've asked our customers what makes us special, these are some of the answers that make Chard stand out above the rest:

• Chard have a wide range of coins from all over the world, both modern and historic. It's true, our strongrooms contain coins both bullion and numismatic from Roman to the latest issues. From hammered to milled, British and foreign, we have coins that appeal to collectors and investors.
  
  
• Chard's prices are the best! Well, we regularly conduct market checks to compare our prices against the competition. In our most recent check, we had the lowest selling prices on approx 95% of our main investment products, across all quantity breaks. In the few examples where we were not cheapest, it was mainly on single piece prices where our shipping costs tipped the scales slightly. On all "investment" quantities, our total prices including shipping, were lower than all our main competitors. If you join our Mailing List, our subscribers are offered a substantial discount on new commemorative coin releases and are alerted to special offers, price reductions and the latest coin and bullion news. 
  
  
• You have a showroom where we can see who you are. We feel it is important to have a 'bricks and mortar presence'. Our customers often like to come and see who we are, where we are and what we do, especially before they purchase large bullion investments. We have been established in Blackpool for over 50 years and are proud of our northern roots. 
  
  
• The staff go out of their way to help. This is one of our favourite comments this year. Our staff are friendly are hand-picked and will go out of their way to help. They are highly-trained and are ready to search the vaults for the coin that you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, you can join the wish-list, then, when we get it in stock we will give you a call. We are buying coins in all the time and we love it when we call our customers to tell them it is available.

Lawrence Chard, Director and Senior Numismatist said "We are absolutely thrilled to have been voted UK Bullion Dealer of the Year for the third year running, scoring a hat-trick! We are delighted, and a little amazed to pick up awards for the 2017 International E-Commerce and International Numismatics. Our first website was created in 1988 and we kept on adding websites and pages until they became unwieldy giants that were crammed full of numismatic information but were difficult to update. We're involved in a major overhaul of all sites so this is wonderful news."

Those of you who have been with us for a long time, will be well aware that we have been transferring this information over to our main website chards.co.uk which is undertaking a complete overhaul. We didn't want our website to simply be an e-commerce site, we wanted to retain the informational aspect which attracts thousands of visitors a day which meant that everything has had to be written and coded. It is a work in progress and one which will probably take until the end of the year until we have moulded it into the website we are trying to achieve. We have thousands of items that are currently being added and we are currently working on adding customer accounts, guides and much more. Behind the scenes, we have implemented a new database and product control which will all be linked to the website. We are still adding products from the strongrooms (including over 5,000 sovereigns) and have yet to complete the World Room and the UK Room but when it is finished, we will be more efficient and your questions will be answered more quickly. Please bear with us, we promise it will be worth it. 

Juliana, Lawrence's daughter said "We are proud of our Blackpool roots and are determined to go the extra mile - the Golden Mile!"

We are planning many more improvements in the next 12 months and are already thinking about making sure we deserve another shot at these prestigious awards next year.

So, we would like once again to say a huge THANK YOU! Without your support and belief in us this wouldn't have happened. We are proud and delighted to be your 2017 UK Bullion Dealer of the Year.