Masters no more

I went and had another look today, The place was really cleaned out over the weekend.. Slim pickings now. All the stuff that was bargain prices is pretty much gone now. Stuff is getting cheaper and it seems the discount increases seem to come about on a Wednesday.

I bought a tin of paint for the garage ceiling, 2 packs of C Brads (now 50% off and cheaper than Trade Tools). All the gal framing nails were gone unfortunately. Also picked up some lengths of dowl

Talking to a mate who works there, he said they are supposed to be winding up early December, so its probably worth keeping an eye on as the final days get closer.

I picked up $1500 worth of arkitraves, skirting and some trims. 60% off which was still better than any trade quote i could get.
Happy with it.

Also got an rcd for my leads 2 weeks ago which broke. Swapped it for a new one and they gave me money fpr the new difference in cost.

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Another 10% off today and tomorrow.

Needed some dynabolts to another set of timer wood racks.

Drove right into Masters like any other hardware trip.
Was surprised they still had the things I wanted.

Got lucky and found a huge box of screw bolts for brickwork
each hade a barcode
10 / 100 were $2.20 each.
So got 15 instead of just 9.

Dowling is 50% off so grabbed 5 lengths.

Was gonna go back in to look around and couldn't be bothered.

I'll mark this shopping trip as a positive result.

December 10th or 11th i think it was they will be 100% done.

Masters sold the stock to a liquidator. So masters no longer will keep the store open past that date.

Not sure what will happen with leftover stock.

Everton park still looked 40% full.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bebbo

Not sure what will happen with leftover stock.
Everton park still looked 40% full.

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They just shift stock from those quieter stores to the busier ones

I am chasing some white or grey epoxy paint so if anyone sees some in the brisbane (north) region let me know! Using it to paint a trolley that we use for a Volunteer Marine Rescue boat. Ultimately, it will be painted in any colour I can get my hands on if its cheap.

I was in the Penrith store on Tuesday.

The hardware shelves are very depleted.

SAD thing is the staff still don't know what or when the final close is happening, PLUS they haven't be told about there job forecasts....

I wonder if wholesalers will use them to dump old stock cheap as their supplies run low? Seems to happen from time to time in closing down sales, stores sell products they have never sold before.

Its possible but I would have thought unlikely. More stock is more liabilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ubernoob

I wonder if wholesalers will use them to dump old stock cheap as their supplies run low? Seems to happen from time to time in closing down sales, stores sell products they have never sold before.

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Unlikely.

My mate that works at masters said they had stuff up where they had sold out of 90mm merbau decking but more was delivered as a result of an order mistake. Given I am in IT I would hazard a guess that it was an automatic reorder based on exceeding minimum stock levels. Since then, they have shut down a lot of the computer systems. Masters want stock gone, they are already 3.5billion down.

Masters couldn't give a toss about the stock now Damian - it's no longer theirs, and belongs to the liquidators.

I dropped into my local Masters tonight (South Morang) and the tool section had been cleared out. Staff were turning away customers at the door because they closing at 8pm (used to be 9 ?). I saw at least 5 people get rejected as I walked 20 metres to the car.

I went to the Adelaide Masters again today. I went once when they were trading and found they didn't stock even the most basic stuff so never went back.

Last weekend I was at Ikea and dropped by for a look ..... Very busy on a Saturday.

I dropped in again today as I had to go to the airport. There still seems to be a fair bit of stock but in my case nothing that I would want/need. A bit like my first visit there seemed to be a lot of stuff that I didn't need (unlike Bunnings). I asked the staff for a few basic things that would be a regular range at Bunnings and was told that they never stocked them.

I did have a laugh at the large sign advertising the free tradies breakfast .... Somebody had written "byo" at the top!

Unfortunately Masters never struck the right chord with me.

LOL
BYO
Now that's funny!

I like to think that Masters would have replaced and expanded most of the Lowes stuff with other suppliers in time. They would have learnt what sells and where to source it from. One key mistake they made was relying on an American company for stock and stock choices.
This probably came from their faulty strategy. A more modest number of stores would have limited their losses while they learnt a new business in a new market.
This became fairly obvious fairly quickly. They lacked the corporate climate to switch strategies.
Better management would have pressed for becoming more profitable and more appeal before continuing to expand.
Lack of agility.