Masters are closing their doors.
I like masters for things that I can't easily buy elsewhere. I like their Swanson, Kobalt, Bahco, Bessey etc. as well as their range of varnishes.
I think we'll be worse off with a virtual monopoly in the DIY market.
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Masters are closing their doors.
I like masters for things that I can't easily buy elsewhere. I like their Swanson, Kobalt, Bahco, Bessey etc. as well as their range of varnishes.
I think we'll be worse off with a virtual monopoly in the DIY market.
That's too bad. The Lowes stores in my area are in a kind of zombie state, clearly still well patronized but the staff is less knowledgeable, the product range is narrowing to the highest volume items and the prices are generally higher for equivalent items at the local competitor Home Depot. Online shopping is really killing local specialty stores and the more specialized items carried by the big boxes such as Bessey products. Manufacturers are shifting the burden of maintaining stock onto the end user - either have it on hand or wait a week to order online. I think the big boxes will only carry items that are too heavy or impractical to ship easily via parcel carriers in the future.
Woolworths posted a 1.2b loss so they are cutting their losses. Interestingly they are shedding Home hardware to Metcash who already own Mitre 10 leaving pretty much a two horse race for most of us.
However watch out for some pretty good deals in the next few months.
John
I got a giggle out of the video.
There was a comment that was notable:
Lowes didn't understand the Australian market. The comment about snow shovels in summer was hysterical. Lowes is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The fact that your seasons and our seasons are reversed was lost on Lowes.
Remember with all of their training, a Lowes manager can manage anyone, anywhere, anytime without having to know what they are managing. I can substitute several company names for Lowes based upon personal experience. LOL!
Here in the US, Sears attempted to move into the home center business. Sears acquired Orchard Supply Hardware, a small supply house oriented about the wine industry in the Napa Valley and in reality a very good hardware chain. Sears changed the name to OSH and acquired a lot of sites. Sears headquartered in Chicago managed the stock and the store layout including shelf space arrangements.
SWMBO wanted to walk through the OSH in Huntington Beach when the store first opened. As we were walking through the store, she starts giggling. I asked her, "What are you laughing at?" SWMBO points and says, "Those are sump pumps, aren't they?" Yes, there was about 2 M of shelf space dedicated to displaying 6 or 8 different models of sump pumps. Her astute observation was, "They aren't going to stay in business very long."
In Huntington Beach, except for a few multistory commercial buildings, there are probably less than 10 basements in the city. All the houses are built on either a slab or a half meter crawl space. In my neighborhood the water table is 1.5 M which makes a basement almost impossible.
Yeah definitely a shame. Was there buying a Swanson speed square a couple of weeks ago and was surprised to see the Bessey line there. Might have to try and catch some on sale before they disappear, there are only a couple of places here that sell them and the selection is quite limited.Quote:
Originally Posted by justonething
Good for locals to report on any price reductions they see. :)
John
I'll miss 'em a bit. I do like the floor poly for benchtops, they stock Bostik floor glues which B don't and I've had a great run with all of their "cheapie" Kobalt home brand hand tool stuff. It's quite good quality for the buck...909 not so much..
Its a sad day as Masters carried some good brands including Franklin glues -Titebond etc. More jobs gone! Looks like my sister in laws brother is now jobless.
Just maybe one day in the future these idiot senior management teams that "can manage anybody, anything, anywhere" ( sounds a bit like the Goodies TV comedy) will actually listen to their retail teams and customers before they go broke! We often see surf rods in sports stores in Far North Queensland - I think the only people who purchase them are southerners that pick up a bargain when they are grossly marked down. Though I haven't seen a snow blower in the Masters store in Cairns.
I just went to Masters to pick up some finishing supplies and a elcheapo lamp so I can see what I am doing on the woodlathe. Because I spent more than $25 they were giving away FREE lufkin tape measures. The tape measure isn't the best, but it is very good. All different colours and patterns printed on the plastic casing. For some DUMB DUMB DUMB reason, I picked the one which looked like a timber offcut. I have enough trouble finding my fluorescent orange tape measure...:doh:
Bugger...I am just getting used to the Masters store in Penrith [outer Sydney]; it has some good product....
I wonder what Bunnings management are thinking.
I spend a lot at both stores ever year( five figure amount)
With masters gone it could become quite scary.
Mitre Ten are really not in the same league
Been visiting Masters for the past 2 weeks buying stuff at 30-60% off, all fixings 50% off, interesting how low it will go now decision made to close
It seems some of the items stocked by Masters are indeed quite popular and sought after.
I often wonder if masters were run differently, concentrating on stocking those items then they might not be suffering the same fate. But bad management and wrong strategies has cost woolies billion and us a place to buy what we want .
I started off my life in hardware and it is certainly a tricky business. It is a fine line between diversifying and spreading your butter too thin. Look at JB who are now getting into white goods. Not sure how well they will do against the established markets. They cannot sell $500 HDMI cables with fridges :)
It seems to me that Masters was a good idea poorly implemented. Partnering with a US company made it easier to initially access supply chains but giving them too much control over stocking policies appears to be a serious mistake.
Obviously we may never have an insight into the market research and planning that was done. It is easy to see the mistakes in hindsight and one would have expected better from a company that had so much retail experience.
The mistakes they are making makes one wonder whether they have completely dropped the ball. This coming hard on the heels of DSE. They are also seeing a big challenge from the likes of Aldi as well.
Not sure If I envy their shoes.
John
The real shame is there is almost no one left to at least try and give Bunnings competition. Sure there are independent stores etc but almost none are open late or have anywhere near the Bunnings range.
I used to work in hardware. Mitre 10 and thrifty link. Both of those stores have closed. Main reason in my mind is stock management and stock selection. I think this is also a major downfall of Masters.
The Masters near me had about 3 different drawers slides available. Generally very good selection of nuts and bolts and fittings etc but obscenely expensive. At least when it first opened they had no 1/4 inch fasteners. I generally hate imperial but wanted to match something.
Very hit and miss whereas Bunnings will almost always have something that will work to fix a particular problem.
Masters website is generally horrible. The search feature is terrible. The store stock is not kept up to date either. No excuses for these failures in this day and age from such a large consumer focused retailer.
I find it hard to understand why businesses go belly up when on the face of things they look to be a good business.
In Tamworth about 20 years ago Formica opened a warehouse to distribute their laminates and board products. We already had a Laminex branch successfully doing there thing. Formica organised an investor to build the shed and at the time it was the biggest shed in the southern hemisphere using plywood portal frames. Well the opening was a pretty lavish affair and a couple of hundred people turned up to hear speeches from the Australian GM as well as the NSW manager then the local manager. The line up of faces on the dais were all about 40 at the oldest. I remember thinking "where are the older people in charge?".
Well the branch ran for maybe 4 years then pulled up stumps leaving customers having to ring Sydney to make an order which was then put on overnight freight. The shed was still paying its lease by Formica even though it was empty!!
To me the exercise was a great waste of money due to immature management ideas. The share holders would not have been very happy at all. Then as time goes by Laminex Industries buys out Formica. This also raise the question....at what point does the term "monopoly" come into play because both companies carry the same products?
Money is being wasted by all kinds of companies by management that seems to get away with it.
Edit/Add.... the real losers are the staff. In country towns employment is not so easy to find/keep so in essence these badly managed companies are playing with people's lives.
What I found interesting was that when Masters first opened it "felt" like the attitude of staff at the B store changed overnight. All of a sudden they were everywhere, walked you to what you asked for, and everyone of them nodded and said G'day when they saw you...then, when the M sale or closing became common knowledge it was like B turned the clock back. Spooky.
Was trying to buy paint in B at Armadale WA on Sunday along with about 6 others standing around the paint counter. Just a litre of red for a door.. Actually considered walking out and going the M 500mts away. There has always been someone at their paint counter, apart from late evening once.
When we found the staff at B there was a young lass and fellow in one of the aisles.
She was stacking shelves and he was trying it on...my wife, not famous for her diplomacy sometimes, pointedly pointed out that there were folk, including us, waiting he was nonplussed and casually made his way to the counter...
I have noticed similar at a couple local green sheds. More interested in restocking than serving customers who want to destock.
I think it's a bit ageist to suggest that simply because the people you saw were less than 40 they somehow made immature decisions.Quote:
Originally Posted by chambezio
I know of a very large, top 50 USA companies, that closed almost all warehouses Australia wide. An extremely detailed analysis suggested that it was most efficient to have one large warehouse in Melbourne and freight everything from there. Overheads were reduced enabling the company to be more competitive. Remember freight to 80% plus of Australia's population would be less than a days driving.
I don't know if it's just the times I go but Morley Bunnings seems to always be like that, never any staff around and only one counter ringing up sales. So annoying.Quote:
Originally Posted by david.elliott
Maddington only EVER has one till open. When it gets busy you go to the returns counter...
The rest are the DIY things. Now I'm perfectly capable of using those, they don't faze me, BUT I point blank refuse to. Getting "served" to take the money off me is most times all they need to do to take money off me.
I drive there, I walk around in circles to find what I need, effectively serving myself, and then they expect me pay by myself...It's not like they're doing much for my dollar except putting it on the shelf..and IF their claims were true with the prices I could kinda agree to it...but!
It's so frustrating. They have the gall to actually close the self service checkouts at mine so you wind up with 10 people lined up at one counter.Quote:
Originally Posted by david.elliott
Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
I got an email today from masters :
----------------------------------
Unfortunately, we will be unable to continue offering online purchases or Click & Collect. Of course, our website is still available to browse for information and we will keep you up to date with what's on offer via email.
It looks like mangagement has decided the best way to wind the place up is through the brick and mortar outlet. First in best dressed.
May be we should start a non-bunings timber and hardware thread where people can post the good local places where they get good stuff. For example, where would one goes to get titebond 3 if they don't want to go Carbatec after Masters have closed?Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
Dropped in on Masters at Williams Landing to see what might be on special - only some junk near the checkouts and a few odd white goods, everything else at full price. It appears discounting varies from store to store so if you see any store that is discounting let us all know.Quote:
Originally Posted by dai sensei
Hi WP,
eviscerated
Great word. Leaves me in no doubt as to your explanation.
Cheers, Fred
I went down to my local and it was business as usual except triple the customers all wandering around not buying. Read online afterwards that the fire sale starts monday Masters fire sale to start Monday
At Rouse Hill now. I predict a slow and painful death.
sale announced in Media and similiar customer numbers as per a normal day.
10% off most
20% off garden furniture
30 % off cabinet fixings and door hardware
make sure you say hello to the security guard in the tool shop as they are lonely and have nothing to do
AFAIK they stock just the one length of one model of Bessey clamps; I buy my Bessey's from gettoolsdirect.com.au - they stock them all.Quote:
Originally Posted by bueller
GTD's packing is a little light-on though, considering that's $400 of clamps there:
Attachment 392319
This seems to be the new normal....no such thing as a "fire sale" any more. Dick Smith 2.0 more like. Long drive for me to the nearest Masters (Gregory Hills), so not worth the trip unless there are some decent discounts.
Seems to me that Masters and the liquidator have got rocks in their heads. I can confirm Pac Man's assessment of almost uniformly 10% and no customers in sight.
This is ludicrous: they are now paying for security guards, and the longer the sale goes on the longer they will be paying wages to the staff. If we assume that the liquidator is getting 10% of all sales, then Masters could have put the sale on themselves at 20% off and had a helluva lot more stock go out the door sooner and made the same amount of margin, but raised a lot more money. (obviously the discounts will increase in the coming months).
Had it been 20% I'd have purchased up to $1800 less discount, but as it was I only took out what I have a need for right now to the tune of about $500 (and $300 of that was just for four rolls of Bird Wire for the new massive vege garden).
I made the point to the 'merican store visitor that if it had been a decent discount right from the get-go then a simple post on the various fora could be seen by maybe 10,000 people. As it is, it's business (or lack of) as usual. I mean - think about it - a thread titled "Masters 25% off" is going to get a lot of views translating to feet through the door.
Fixings are 30% off and I have a need for 5 boxes of screws so that was really only what bumped it into "worth the 90 minute return trip". Other than that, check back in 4-5 weeks to see if they've woken up.
Didn't even see any snow shovels at a decent price (hey, we're coming into summer so they should be on display by now :D).
They sell both the 600 and the 1m in the k bodiesQuote:
Originally Posted by NathanaelBC
prices are $74 less 10% and 91 less 10% accordingly
They don't seem to understand that if they get people into the stores on the pretence of a "closing sale", but only offer crappy discounts, the punters won't bother coming back in a few weeks' time if/when they start ramping up the discounts to worthwhile levels.
Same thing happened with Dick Smith, and they got left with lots of (mostly own brand) gear and no more customers. Basically everyone rapidly lost interest and wandered off to look at the shiny things in other stores instead.
Quote [Seems to me that Masters and the liquidator have got rocks in their heads]
The word "liquidator" immediately made my brain go to Dr Who......Exterminate, Exterminate
Weird...."liquidator" made me think more along these lines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6WfSZzi4_Y
I called into the Sunbury store this morning as I was passing,. Carpark 3/4 full, lots of wanderers in the store but not many going through the checkouts. As others have said, the discount seems to be 10% with more on a few lines. 10% on power tools is not enough to get me interested just yet.
Here is their Facebook page if you want to give them some hurry up:
https://www.facebook.com/mastersau
I posted a nicely paragraphed but long comment but as I was a Visitor it took all the paras out which makes it a chore to read.
I went today and so much for the huge sale, it was better last week. The 60% off tables were reduced to 50%, the 50% off all fixing was reduced to 30%, and just the few 10/20/30% bits and pieces as previously. So actually more expensive.
There were plenty of signs saying closing down sale, that kept falling down much to the frustration of staff, but no real discounts being out forward yet.
Dropped in to see my friend at Penrith Masters today....
Lot of people in the store and carpark noticeably fuller....
The staff are one the wiser on what's really happening except to say the liquidator now owns all the stock and responsible for the prices & discounts....
My friends bigger concern is that at least five [5] of the masters suppliers that he knows of, will also have to close their doors, after Masters is wound up....
PS - I did buy a 3.7lt of Titebond Original for my toymaking but really didn't bother looking around....TOO MANY CUSTOMERS TO MANOEUVRE AROUND!!