Thread: Bunnings can beat it by 10% - but is it worth it?

My sentiments exactly.

Now lets see if you do grumpiness as well as me

If you are purchasing from Bunnings, you are already helping them to reduce the competition

We always support the local stores for the reasons you have suggested.

If I am buying something in bulk and happen to be in Melbourne and the savings are significant then I will buy in Melbourne.

Items that I buy on the Internet or elsewhere are specialist items that are not available in the local stores such as good planes, chisels, shellac, waxes etc.

No prizes for guessing where I get the shellac and waxes from

its not what you buy so much that makes a differance, its where you are buying from.....with so much imported stuff coming here and price difference its no wonder we are doing ourselves out of jobs....as a chef I read the can labels a lot ,,,,and shake my head when australian produce gets past over for the cheaper import , example: I find it unbelieveable that a farmer in "parts unknown" can pick tomatoes, crush them and can them and sell them to us cheaper than our farmers can .....soomethings not right ...which is why in 2009-2010 we will begin to "feel" the impact of our spending ways .....major car makers are moving , hundreds of jobs are going ..and I might add associated jobs along with them ....:the snowball effect: I call it .....we choose to buy cheap over aussie made .....and now we are going to :feel : the impact it has ......the government started a "buy australian "campain.......and the more I see and think about it .....perhaps they should have called it ....BUY BACK AUSTRALIA ...

I have put Bunnings on a price watch many months ago.and now only support them when I have got no other option.

Early in the week I was looking for a back up chain saw for my petrol one. Bunnings had an electric one for $89 and a competitor had a similar one, but different colour for $95.99.

I asked the salesman some questions he could not answer so i asked him to ring the manufacturers hot line which he did and to ask what the difference was between a black one and the yellow on they had as they both had the same number but with an A or B added.

He was told the black one was a Bunnings exclusive but it was identical to their yellow one. The salesman then rang Bunnings to confirm the price and this company then discounted to price match.

I told the salesman that I would prefer to buy from them then Bunnings and they processed the order even though I suspect Bunnings would say that it is a different model, has different model numbers and as such it is not an identical item.

If I can get a similar thing for the same price as Bunnings I would give the Big B the bird.

Yep... I'm on-board. I've never done the "10% lower" thing with the hardware stores in my life. I've always thought that a retailer should have the guts to set a price, and then stick to it - for better or worse. Anything else seems two-faced...

Star - you are spot on with the "exact same item except for a different model number" tactic - the BigB has the market power to demand it from their suppliers on so many different lines (noticed it on everything from Power Tools all the way to Vanity Basins) so that they don't have to come into a "price match". The manufacturers themselves sometimes get cagey about it when you ring them up because they're afraid of upsetting the BigB. How lousy is that - to openly promise one thing, but discretely manipulate things in the background towards a different outcome. That's what politicians do...

I used to have a Home Hardware down the road that had a bit of everything, and I knew one of the ladies there, and she was excellent to deal with. Service was always good, and you were always in and out in a few minutes. Then the BigB turned up, and six months or so later - Bang! No more Home Hardware...

One of the problems with being able to support a smaller outfit is "minimum order value". Example: recently I wanted to get my hands on one of the new model GMC Cement Mixers - the smallish one - so that I could haul the thing upstairs into a block of units in order to re-render some Shower Recesses using bagged render. The M10 down near my brother's place stocks GMC, but not this particular unit. When I asked how much to get one in for me, the chap told me a price (that was fair), but added that it would have to wait until they had enough orders for other GMC gear to total-up to something greater than the "minimum order value"...
This situation will hopefully be relaxed for the little guy now that GMC are out in the cold...

I will make a special effort from now on to get what I need from that M10 down near my brother's place. It might cost a few cents more, but that's small change compared to the price rises at the BigB once everyone's else has gone the way of the Dodo...

Best Wishes,
Batpig.

I can't even remember the last time i saw a true 'mom & pop' hardware store. They all seem to be either Bunnies, Homestead hardware or Mitre 10 (gunns). bunnies comes in handy for bulk buys of screws, nuts n bolts etc but their major tools & hardware selection is rapidly going down hill in quality so its quite easy not to support them in that area. Locally my first stop is always Homestead hardware because i despise Gunns & only give them my hard earned $$ when i have to. Bunnies are 45mins away so they naturally become my last choice.

I never met a small business that didn't want to grow to be a big business or an owner that wouldn't compete to remove the competition (unless they were at the end of their working life and choosing lifestyle over their business).

Bunnings and Wal-Mart were all small businesses once as a were Woolworths and Coles. . . so I am not sure what the problem is here?

None of us like it when the local people we know end up closing their business - often after many long years of service, but fact is we all vote with our dollars. How many of you refuse to buy a Macca's or KFC so you can support your local takeaway - with any level of consistency?

Large organisations get to be large by offering what buyers want (and eventually by economies of scale = lower costs of sale) - and, just as the polls suggest we want quality and prefer services instead of tax cuts, but in real life we take the money - the majority of people buy the cheapest product that will do the job for them.

Good onya if you stick by your principles rather than just talking about them, and pay more than the market suggests you should, but in the long run we are all dead - and so are businesses that can't compete. I have run a few businesses over the years including my own and I have yet to come across someone willing to subsidise me - although plenty who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. And that's where a small business (any business) can differentiate - making sure they offer value not simply price (and clearly value for money is what many perceive Bunnings and other big companies offering - whether that perception is accurate is pretty much irrelevant).

I agree totally - soon we will only get rubbish...but at unbeatable prices.

I recently went to Bunnings to get some scaps of wood for a TAFE assignment (needed samples of different types of wood). The people there refused to let me pick out some postcard sizes of wood from their off-cuts bin. The reason...."Our customers need to be satisfied that the wood that we have thrown in the bin from their cutting, gets thrown away..." - "Its against our policy to let people take stuff from the off-cuts bin". When I said thats a bit silly, the 20-something guy (who couldn't even identify the type of wood I asked about) got stuck into me for "offending him".

On the way back hom I passed by a timber yard. I called in and this wonderful, wrinkled old guy was so pleased to hear about my TAFE assignment he took me on the tour, told me stories and I walked away with all my samples (neatly labelled by him) as well as some pretty nice planks of Maple....FOR FREE!!!!

It made my day and for the first time in my life I praised the true Aussie spirit

Originally Posted by rhys55

this wonderful, wrinkled old guy was so pleased to hear about my TAFE assignment he took me on the tour, told me stories and I walked away with all my samples (neatly labelled by him) as well as some pretty nice planks of Maple....FOR FREE!!!!

It made my day and for the first time in my life I praised the true Aussie spirit

Salt of the earth kinda guy, when u find somebody like that its like finding a nugget of gold in your backyard.

Where I live, we don't have a choice - there is the privately-owned Mitre10 (was once the Mum & Pop hardware store) in town or Bunnings at Batemans Bay, about 2 hours away.

When I built my house, I went to Mitre10 and told them I was building. They gave us an account and a 10% discount on building materials, 5% on tools and 20% on nails, screws etc. I started out getting everything through them. Then a mate told me that Bunnings were doing twice-weekly deliveries down our way, so I started getting prices from them for things. Even with the discount I was getting, there was a huge difference in a lot of things.

For example, I used several hundred metres of skirting board. Mitre10's best price was $11 per lm. Bunnings did it for $5. Same stuff, less than half the price. When you're talking upwards of 500 metres, that is a significant difference. Same went for decking ($5.70 per metre at Mitre10, $3.90 at Bunnings) and weatherboard (don't recall the price but the difference ended up being about $3,500).

Now, some people might be able to dismiss those sort of savings and support the local guy, but I would have rocks in my head if I did it. I saved thousands of dollars on the cost of building the house by shopping at Bunnings instead of the local hardware.

I didn't get to make use of the 10% off offer because they were never more expensive, but if they had been, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

Silent C. I understand what you are saying and when they arrived on the Gold Coast they were considerably cheaper then the opposition.

But over the last 12 months since I put them on a Bunnings watch you have to really know your prices. The plumbing department cannot compete with the local plumbing trade supplier.

Their fencing and landscape dept cannot compete with the local fencing supplier. Their nuts and bolts dept cannot compete with the local specialist nuts and bolts supplier who has every widget that you can ask for and generally up to 50% cheaper.

Their gardening herbicide and pesticide dept cannot compete with our specialized rural trade establishment.

Sure, their are some departments they can beat the local guys like in Post Crete etc.

I do not take them for granted anymore unless I need something urgently and the cost of diesel to grab it else ware is too expensive so I will trade off and buy at Bunnings.

Bunnings is not the Bunnings of a few years ago and they are opening the door and taking the foot off the throat of a few small progressive businesses around here who now have the ability to price match Bunnings on quite a number of products.

Those stainless steel turnbuckle thingies for stainless steel wiring for deck balustrading were around 18 dollars each at Bunnies.
My hubby found them at a local wire merchant for around 4 dollars each.

wow, lots of interesting responses here, and all seem pretty valid to me. Its not an issue that is only open to one point of view.

I tend to think that Bunnings capitalised on some pretty good economic times, and some pretty favourable conditions that saw home renovation industry soar and lots of cheap imported tools available because of a strong aussie dollar. I don't think we'll see a repeat of those conditons in the near future, and their reduction in product lines can only indicate a general downturn in profits.

But irrespective of Bunnings, my point of view is that variety is important and should be encouraged. If we can continue to appreciate the good things in life then great companies such as Veritas can continue to reward us, and won't go the way of other great companies like Camillus and Millers Falls, and local stores can continue to offer us a great selection of high quality goods.

Until then, the only way to keep those options open is to occasionally be prepared to pay a bit more to give the local shop owners a fair chance to succeed.