Thread: Masters to close

Personally, I'd like Masters to be picked up by some other business and reinvigorated.

The other day there was an ad in the AFR from Jaycar Electronics, seeking interest from landlords currently leasing space to Dick Smith stores, and they specifically said they were not interested in shopping mall locations (which to me is where the entire original Woolies/Dick Smith strategy started coming apart many years ago), as men didn't like shopping malls.

I think Masters needs have the same sort of knowledge of who they are trying to appeal to, and what market they are trying to serve.

The whole Masters 'lets have whitegoods retailing, because (reasons)' to me is made on the wrong sort of customer expectations. To me, it was always like a pretend hardware store where they weren't quite sure what they should be selling. And the whole 'we won't sell you kitchen bits, we want to sell you the entire kitchen' was another bizarre decision. They were too into the idea that their market was the people who watched home renovation shows, not the people who do it for a living or the people who do it for a hobby.

They also need to focus on differentiating themselves from Bunnings. They made some attempts at this (stocking timber like poplar and red oak) but this got given the flick in favour of Tassie Oak and pinus crapiata; but if they had worked their Lowes connection right, (looking for novelty and uniqueness to bring to the Australian market) they could have done well in ways that Bunnings seems to pass over (see some of the tool lines that Supercheap Auto stocks).

Home Depot and Lowes seem to build almost opposite each other in Houston Texas. Drive past any of their outlets there and the Lowes carpark only ever had about 20% of the cars in them that Home Depot had.

Son went to a Bunnies last week (not sure where exactly) but he had to drive around to get a car park. Masters was opposite and had 2 cars in their carpark.

In Geelong the carpark at Bunnies is always very busy especially on weekends, Mitre 10 is about the same.

Went to masters in Ballarat on Saturday to redeem a $100 Gift Card. Had wife, son, his wife and 2 x 5 year old grandchildren with me. The kids loved the big blue car which masqueraded as a shopping cart and the rest of us agreed that the main reason they must be having trouble was because there were not many recognisable brand names the shelves.

Not saying they weren't good brands or weren't good products just that they weren't recognisable and I'm sure the average Joe wouldn't walk in straight off the street and buy a product with a name he had never heard.

Cheers - Neil

PS went to redeem $100 Gift Card and ended up spending over $300 on all sorts of other stuff so it wasn't a complete loss for them. To me they're kind of the Aldi of hardware shops. Lots of stuff but not the choice of stuff that I want to buy topped off with some weird specials to drag you into the shop. Alsi seem to have been able to get it right for a lot of people Masters haven't quite got it. They need to recognise that this is Australia and not the USA.

PPS No I don't shop at Aldi and never go after any of their specials. Rather pay full price and know what I'm getting. I'm not knocking Aldi, for people on a budget they are a godsend.

Originally Posted by Master Splinter

Personally, I'd like Masters to be picked up by some other business and reinvigorated.

you might have to forego this. As a business, Masters consists of the sites the stores sit on -- are they owned or just leased to Woollies? -- and the stock control and ordering system. Who will end up with the latter is probably the key to what happens in the end.

While we think of retailing as the range of choice and the price at the cash register, the real "business" is knowing what is selling and what is not and what seasonal items can be flogged, either at a big mark-up or huge volume, but preferably both.

The other day there was an ad in the AFR from Jaycar Electronics, seeking interest from landlords currently leasing space to Dick Smith stores, and they specifically said they were not interested in shopping mall locations (which to me is where the entire original Woolies/Dick Smith strategy started coming apart many years ago), as men didn't like shopping malls.

me thinks it more likely related to a shopping mall's business model -- $xxx per sq.m of floor space PLUS 25% (or more) of turn-over. It's one of the reasons behind the "Australia tax". Coles and Woollies get very special deals because they are "key stone" tenants who attract traffic to the mall.

The whole Masters 'lets have whitegoods retailing, because (reasons)' to me is made on the wrong sort of customer expectations. To me, it was always like a pretend hardware store where they weren't quite sure what they should be selling. And the whole 'we won't sell you kitchen bits, we want to sell you the entire kitchen' was another bizarre decision. They were too into the idea that their market was the people who watched home renovation shows, not the people who do it for a living or the people who do it for a hobby.

but this is how Home Depot, Lowes, and their competitors appear to operate in Canada (and the US?).

They also need to focus on differentiating themselves from Bunnings. They made some attempts at this (stocking timber like poplar and red oak) but this got given the flick in favour of Tassie Oak and pinus crapiata;

I don't think this was what happened at all.

Masters initially stocked Popular and Red Oak because they were the softwood / hardwood combinations stocked in US stores. Don't forget, for the first few years, Masters operated with a near complete US catalogue and stock lines. I'm sure I've read somewhere that Masters were selling (or at least unpacking) snow blowers in Australia in November/December and I know their lawn mowers (along with their spring plants) were on special in May / June -- just in time for the prime June-July-August summer growing season.

if they had worked their Lowes connection right, (looking for novelty and uniqueness to bring to the Australian market) they could have done well in ways that Bunnings seems to pass over (see some of the tool lines that Supercheap Auto stocks).

I've been into my "local" Lowes and Home depot stores quite a lot.
There lots of stuff that is different to that in Australia.
There's stuff which I wish we had easier access to in Australia.
But there's precious little that is "novel" or "Unique" unless you count the giant blow up front yard Christmas kitsch.

I'm not surprised that Bunnings pass over some tool lines -- their target market doesn't want to spend the dollars necessary to buy good tools.
A couple of years ago I was in the tool section of my then local Bunnings when a chap came in looking for a tool equivalent to a Hilti drill. He'd just seen the Hilti in action and been so impressed and wanted to spend $150 on an equivalent from Bunnings -- the Bunnings salesperson was sufficiently "kind" to advise that Bunnings didn't stock a tool equivalent to a Hilti.

Originally Posted by ian

you might have to forego this. As a business, Masters consists of the sites the stores sit on -- are they owned or just leased to Woollies?

60% of the 63 stores are owned by Masters/Woolworth

Masters closure would create massive retail leasing hole | afr.com

I hope they stay open, great to have some other choices. I have personally spent over $8,000 with them since they opened here in WA.

Interestingly I just did a survey for a US magazine and they asked about my visits to various stores including the two separate categories of hardware store and home center. It seems that they wanted Masters to be a "home center" rather than a hardware store such as Bunnings. It appears that this was a miscalculation since Australians typically shop at the hardware store for hardware and electrical stores for our electrical items.

Just a thought.

John

It seems theres a reasonable time line.Found this online in their catalogue

Public Announcement from Woolworths

Woolworths Limited has announced that it intends to exit its home improvement businesses, including our 63 Masters Home Improvement stores, and our Home Timber & Hardware business.

This process will take several months and the business will continue to trade normally through this period. Woolworths will honour all gift cards, product warranties, returns, and lay-bys and the completion of any contracted home improvement projects such as kitchens, bathrooms and floor coverings.>

How many members have noticed ads for 'GotStock' during their travels on the net? This is an online tool and hardware business set up by Wesfarmers (parent of Bunnings) that supplies many of the 'more serious' tools/products we can use and/or aspire to own. This is their initial effort to put your local tool specialists (Gasweld, Total Tools, etc. etc.) out of business. One specialist tool supplier has bitten the dust in Albury in the past few years due to the Bunnings onslaught already.

In Albury/Wodonga we have the choice of two general hardware suppliers, Bunnings at multiple locations and Dahlsens at one location 10 minutes out of town. That's to service a population of about 100,000 people. All the other hardware retailers have been put out of business by Bunnings, and Dahlsens have reduced to one location and cut their store size by 50% in the past 3 years. If our local tool specialists go bust we'll be that much worse off. Much of the stuff Bunnings sell, particularly as far as tools are concerned, is a very limited offering and there is a lot of junk amongst it. I like to have a choice of a range and quality of tools and Bunnings simply don't offer this in many areas of their product offering. Because Bunnings have a virtual monopoly the service levels are very patchy, but I would generally describe them as 'poor'. There are times when I receive good, knowledgeable service, but they are certainly in the minority. I find I very often know more about products, processes and where to source what people are looking for than Bunnings staff members. Many of their staff seem to have the view that if they don't have it nobody would possibly want it, and they can offer no advice as to where it can be obtained even if it is available from another retailer in the town.

Yes, maybe Woolies should have stuck to groceries, grog and poker machines (how you couldn't make money out of them is beyond me), but any competition offered up to the Bunnings juggernaut can only be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers,
David

I have not seen the GotStock ads but even if I did I will stick to Trade Tools for my gear

Every so often I am asked to supply and install a clothes line for a client. Over the years I have found that Hills is perhaps a better quality and certainly has a better method of tying off the ends.
Bunnings is my preferred supplier of larger hardware items and they used to stock Hills.
Now Hills has an exclusive deal with Woolworths so there products are not stocked in Bunnings but are in Masters.
I do not enjoy going into Masters, and in fact drive past them to go to Bunnings, however if I want a Hills clothes line, I need to go to Masters. If however Masters close, who is going to sell Hills clothes lines? I cannot see myself going into perhaps a large shopping center to go to Big W, and will they also have bags of concrete for ground kits? It will get interesting.

I will agree, Masters have some good tool lines with Hilti and Haitachi as well as Bosch. If only there website would match the actual stock in the store, or perhaps it would be better off not trying.

My son used to work for Hills.

Bunnings used to buy quite a few products from Hills, including the clothes hoist.

Bunnings in their wisdom decided to have most of the Hills products copied and manufactured for them in China.

Hills no longer manufacture these products in Australia but also have them made for them in China. This includes, the Hills Hoist, play equipment, ladders, the list goes on.

Drive past where the Hills factory was in Edwardstown SA and you will find another empty site destined for, you guessed it, a shopping centre.

Was wondering what they were going to do with that site

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

If we are only left with Bunnings
It will be very very price scary world of hardware.

And I just noticed Bunnings has made it in to my spell check immmmmmm

And what does the governed think of only one supplier ????

If you do a Google search for anything that Bunnings stock, let's say "Makita Drill" the first result is always Bunnings. I don't profess to know how that is done but it must take a lot of clout to do it. If that search is repeated with say BING Bunnings are no where in sight on the hits you get.