Bunnings v Masters

[TheSneakiness]

Found a difference between the two now other than brand names.

Succulents. Masters has a range of small seedling like sized plants where Bunnings has larger ones only. Bit hard to fit a large succulent into a small terrarium.

[duaned]

I like Masters because I have a Trade discount card. Haven't bothered to apply for one at the big green building.

[Beastie]

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much Bunnings loses in a year due to theft, write offs and incorrect invoicing?

Just remember, there are 200+ stores....

[LTDHO]

Originally Posted by The Beast

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much Bunnings loses in a year due to theft, write offs and incorrect invoicing?

Just remember, there are 200+ stores....

Not that I would, but you have to think that the kid on the door isn't going to stop anyone who's receipt doesn't match the item.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by The Beast

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much Bunnings loses in a year due to theft, write offs and incorrect invoicing?

Just remember, there are 200+ stores....

Not enough when they pulled a 600+ million dollar profit.

[duaned]

Originally Posted by The Beast

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much Bunnings loses in a year due to theft, write offs and incorrect invoicing?

Just remember, there are 200+ stores....

$2.5 million?

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by duaned

$2.5 million?

Substantially more.....

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by LTDHO

Not that I would, but you have to think that the kid on the door isn't going to stop anyone who's receipt doesn't match the item.

You would be surprised at how much they do stop from 'walking out the door'.

People have been stopped with a trolley full of stuff trying to get out???

[Olbucko]

Originally Posted by vztrt

Not enough when they pulled a 600+ million dollar profit.

200 stores, $3 million profit per store, not much profit considering the amount of money invested in stock and the building.

[LTDHO]

Originally Posted by The Beast

You would be surprised at how much they do stop from 'walking out the door'.

People have been stopped with a trolley full of stuff trying to get out???

Do you work for Bunnings?

[b0son]

People see the Masters self-checkout as a challenge, try to take as much stock without paying as possible .... swap packaging to the cheaper alternative, take 10 but only swipe 5, etc ....

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by b0son

People see the Masters self-checkout as a challenge, try to take as much stock without paying as possible .... swap packaging to the cheaper alternative, take 10 but only swipe 5, etc ....

Happens in supermarkets as well.

When self serve tills were being phased in the fruit and vege department saw a huge spike (like 30 fold) increase in the sales of the cheapest vegetable or fruit (generally spuds)..

People were buying anything that had to be weighed and putting them through as something else much cheaper.

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by LTDHO

Do you work for Bunnings?

Not anymore, but I did.

They would write off over $100M in a year due to theft etc and it was less than 1% of their turnover, so it was 'acceptable'.

With the "meet & greet" people, they are asked to record what they stopped walking out the door each week and were rewarded accordingly. They also complete specific training for the meet & greet role.

Bunnings do some things really well and some other things not so well, just like any business I guess.

The other thing they do really well but don't advertise is donate over $20M per year to different charities eg the good old BBQ (Bunnings makes nothing from these).

Their motto is very simple....Full, Clean & Tidy!

[You Yangs]

With the Meet and Greet person, try this next time you walk in. Look at them straight in the eye when they say Hello and don't say a word back. Freaks em right out.
Even better is walk in backwards and don't make eye contact.
Can you tell i like to muck around with people? Ha Ha

[Yellow_Festiva]

Finally grabbed my scaffold from Masters.

I called over the weekend to ask someone to measure the box. Easy enough, right? I explained that if it was too big I would need my trailer (stored at a mates place) and I it was narrow enough I could put it in the back of the wagon with half the seat down due to a baby seat.

Yep, it's 1.8m x 1.1m x 10. Ummm I guess 10 must mean centimetres you think?? (her words). Thought it was a little wider than I assumed but moved along.

Bugger, too wide to stand up, go to grab the trailer.

Arrive to find the box is only 80ish cm wide...

Yep, 30 min extra driving to grab my trailer for nothing....

I guess some things are just too hard!

[Mowdit]

Originally Posted by Olbucko

200 stores, $3 million profit per store, not much profit considering the amount of money invested in stock and the building.

I was lead to believe that a lot of the STOCK items for sale are supplier merchandise on consignment, and the supplier doesn't get paid till well after the sale, then has to take back any remaining or unsold stock.
Would like to find out for sure, anyone ?

Same as how you see the supplier reps organizing and stocking the displays at times.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by Olbucko

200 stores, $3 million profit per store, not much profit considering the amount of money invested in stock and the building.

Actually that was only half year.

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&r...6zneOg&cad=rja

[ford71V8]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Finally grabbed my scaffold from Masters.

I called over the weekend to ask someone to measure the box. Easy enough, right? I explained that if it was too big I would need my trailer (stored at a mates place) and I it was narrow enough I could put it in the back of the wagon with half the seat down due to a baby seat.

Yep, it's 1.8m x 1.1m x 10. Ummm I guess 10 must mean centimetres you think?? (her words). Thought it was a little wider than I assumed but moved along.

Bugger, too wide to stand up, go to grab the trailer.

Arrive to find the box is only 80ish cm wide...

Yep, 30 min extra driving to grab my trailer for nothing....

I guess some things are just too hard!

I'm sure you already reminded yourself on the day but...thats one of those things you just need to do yourself so you know its correct.

[buggerlugs]

Slightly off topic, but what are peoples purchasing habits now ? Yellow pages, the book seems to be getting smaller each year. Do most people do a Google search or check both web pages before going shopping ?

[LG17]

As it's a fair drive to either I always jump online first well before I go to compare them both. That way when I get there I know what the other has available and can use that to my advantage.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

Slightly off topic, but what are peoples purchasing habits now ? Yellow pages, the book seems to be getting smaller each year. Do most people do a Google search or check both web pages before going shopping ?

Google plus visiting each of their sites.

[Ride]

Originally Posted by Mowdit

I was lead to believe that a lot of the STOCK items for sale are supplier merchandise on consignment, and the supplier doesn't get paid till well after the sale, then has to take back any remaining or unsold stock.
Would like to find out for sure, anyone ?

Not so. All stock is owned by Bunnings when it hits the shelves. Some limited suppliers/lines depending on the particular arrangement could be credited, but otherwise the risk sits with Bunnings.

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by Ride

Not so. All stock is owned by Bunnings when it hits the shelves. Some limited suppliers/lines depending on the particular arrangement could be credited, but otherwise the risk sits with Bunnings.

Yeah, we never get any returns from Bunnings or masters.
We do get heaps from home hardware, although that's usually all warranty claims.

[b2tf]

We have both here, I use both. Depends on what I'm buying as to where I go. If its power tools and electrical stuff or fittings etc, it's Bunnings. If it's consumable stuff like nails etc, it's Masters.

I think the worst thing about Masters is their staff, the one we have here you could ask some of them to spell their name and they'd struggle let alone tell you what size bolt to use. Bunnings probably isn't much better but I am familiar with the layout of our local one so I don't normally need to ask for help.

My overall store of choice for tools though is Gasweld but every time I go in there I end up buying about 3x the stuff I need so trips are limited!

[Yellow_Festiva]

Had to go to 3 different Bunnings last night (B1-B3) to buy two different types of castors to make some shelving mobile. I needed 10 of each.

B1 had lots of the first castor and none of the second castor. The second castor was not actually the exact one I wanted but the actual one I wanted was on display but the ticket was missing so the person couldn't look it up. I confirmed that B2 had the other type of castor I wanted.

Ok, went to B2 in the hope they had the mysterious castor I actually wanted plus the original one. They had the one that B1 had, but none of the second one that was missing the ticket from B1. However, someone could now scan the ticket and they promptly told me that B3 had heaps of the castor I was still missing.

Bought the 10 I needed then went off to the last Bunnings to complete my shopping.

I don't feel too bad actually, my wife does the same with clothes!

As for Masters:

Masters is a home improvement haemorrhage

Accounts lodged by the joint venture company that owns home improvement chain Masters show a clear and more frightening picture of the extent it is haemorrhaging – it lost $227.4 million in 2015.

The notice also said Woolworths and its partner Lowe's will now together pump in another $90 million in capital into the business – suggesting it needs the cash to pay operating costs and fund the store rollout.

Meanwhile, separate Woolworths accounts released a few weeks ago show that it carries a liability of $886.5 million associated with the Masters business – a figure that has ballooned by $115.3 million over the past year.

Next month Lowe's has the right to give Woolworths notice that it will exercise the put option and after another 13 months the option can actually be exercised.

Lowe's, which is a large operator in the US market, has been generally supportive of its investment in the home improvement joint venture in Australia and on several occasions has agreed to extend the date of the exercise of its put.

Between them Woolworths and Lowe's have now pumped $3.2 billion into the Australian hardware experiment, and the latest injection suggests the pump has not yet been turned off. This is despite the fact that the joint venture has already received additional capital several times this year.

Such is the size and timeframe of the dilemma that will be facing the new chief executive of Woolworths when he or she puts their feet under the desk on day one.

There have been howls from many sections of the market for Woolworths to deal with Masters whose losses are growing – most opinion is focused on some attempt at selling the business, if that can be achieved, or liquidating the assets.

Woolworths has been desperately attempting to improve Masters' performance introducing new formats and working on the product range – and arguably this redesign may have not had enough time to fairly withstand judgement.

It would be very convenient and logical for a new boss with no attachment to the poor decisions that led to the creation of Masters, to simply pay off Lowe's, sell what sites and assets they can, write down the billions in equity and hightail it out of Dodge.

Indeed, it is so compelling that one has to wonder whether any other option could even compete.

It stands to reason that the last thing a new chief executive would want is to pump even more of Woolworths' precious equity into Masters.

And unless the owner is prepared to hand over more to restore the business, there would be little point in keeping it.

There is also plenty of execution risk associated with a new boss deciding to hold onto it.

It is only the executives that created Masters that have the professional responsibility to patch up. The last of those men will be vacating the management posts as soon as the new chief executive starts.

The new boss will need to redirect as much capital as possible towards Woolworths' supermarket assets – the growth from which has stalled – whose potential for impressive returns provides management with powerful incentives to take most of the focus.

The accounts of the Woolworths/Lowe's joint venture company, Hydrox Holdings, show assets of $3.19 billion and accumulated losses of $461.1 million. The accumulated losses from the Masters chain have been offset by some smaller profitable hardware and building products companies that are also owned by the joint venture.

For instance, losses at Masters blew out from $176 million to $245.6 million on sales of $930 million in 2015 while profits at Home Timber and Hardware grew 198 per cent to $20.9 million, boosted by recent acquisitions.

How much stamina either joint venture partner has is anyone's guess. At last month's US investor call, the Lowe's management said it was pleased with how the Australian business was progressing in changing the formats.

But the put option that Lowe's holds as part of its joint venture agreement with Woolworths means that the latter has underwritten its partner's losses. Just how immune Lowe's is from the losses is not especially clear.

While the put option is treated in Woolworths accounts as a $886.5 million liability this is not necessarily how much Lowe's would receive. Indeed, when Lowe's ultimately exercises the put option the price paid by Woolworths will be one negotiated and agreed by both parties. If agreement can't be reached, an independent valuer will decide.

http://www.msn.com/en-au/money/marke...id=mailsignout

[marty351]

Interesting. I'm hoping they won't ask for or receive a govco bailout.

[Danny]

They're a hardware supermarket.

I'm a high end builder, therefore have no interest in either. Me shopping in either of those places would be like a top chef going to Safeway.

Go to the people who specialise in what you want rather than these joints and their aisles and aisles of Ryobi, GMC, and Black and Decker. As for the "trade card" and Timber? Lol, good luck when you're just a number on a trade card to a massive corporation.

Killing the little guys, Masters was just an arrogant excercise in attempting a billion dollar "*** You!" to Westfarmers after they bought Bunnings because they owned Coles as well. The grotesque amounts of money being haemorrhaged by the Masters debacle is abhorrent, and it's the Woolworths workers who are paying for the company losses... Corporate arrogance at its very worst.

[Ride]

Originally Posted by Danny

Killing the little guys, Masters was just an arrogant excercise in attempting a billion dollar "*** You!" to Westfarmers after they bought Bunnings because they owned Coles as well.

Was the other way around ... Wesfarmers have owned Bunnings for quite a number of years, they bought the Coles group well after.

[Crazy Dazz]

Just over a decade ago, I lived in a large regional town. Our "local hardware store" was deplorable. Old, dirty, dusty, full of crap, rude, not interested in service, expensive and unwilling to negotiate even on something that had obviously been rusting away in a corner for years. Since I worked for his accountants, I knew that the owner was an *** and raking it in.
Then Bunnings came to town. He spent the next few years complaining, always had signs in his window denigrating Bunnings and accusing them of forcing him out of business. In the end he just spat the chewy and closed, yte he never made any attempt to improve his customer service.

Bunnings used to be very good, had a lot of very knowledgeable people in the store. That standard of service went downhill, especially during the latter years of the mining boom, and when they tried to cut costs by running lean.

Master recently opened a huge warehouse store at Joondalup, and Bunnings responded by closing their existing enormous warehouse, and building an ever bigger one next door to Masters.
Unfortunately I think the stores are too big, and filled with too much crap. I don't go to a hardware store to buy cushions or rugs.

We have a new Masters at Landsdale, which is literally right next door. My wife and daughter have jobs there, so I tend to go there because its convenient (or just get my wife to pick up what I need.)

[Adamz Ghia]

I honestly think Woolies thought the money was just going to roll in. I wouldn't call it arrogant, but rather naive. They saw the size of the market and saw the dollar signs.