Well looks like what we all thought is finally happening, expects closing sales soon I guess.
http://www.woolworthslimited.com.au/page/The_Newsroom/Press_…
Woolworths Pulling out of Home Improvement Sector, No More Masters?
Related Stores
Comments
Don't knock it, it seems to work for them. What would JB be without a moody tattooed hipster serving and manky handwritten signs with the outside banners flapping in the wind. It's the vibe.
This is embarrassing for Woolworths. The first store in Adelaide has been open for just under 13 months. Masters is building a new store as part of the large expansion at Colonnades SA, south of Adelaide. It's the flagship store of the new build and not even half finished before Woolworths pulls the plug and hopes someone comes in and buys the turkey.
They were also building a store in Parafield Gardens SA which is 60% complete and was due to be opened in Mid 2016
https://www.masters.com.au/diy-projects-ideas/support-help/s…
Woolworths just got a new CEO, so plans that were made months ago would be out the door.
incorrect
Thanks for the helpful comment, especially in your elaboration. I was incorrect, they have a new chairman, the CEO is retiring.
Masters in hawthorn. Self checkout was well known to be a doozy. Shame on them for making us dishonest….
Wut?
Are you saying it was easy to steal things from their self check out and it's their fault because they let you?
There is this thing called morals. Wow, just wow.
Don't think I will miss them too much, for some reason the closest Masters to me has a bunnings either side of it (Forrestdale), quite sad really.
And the name "masters" just does not work, it doesn't sound like a hardware store.
they sell appliances too so it's not technically just a hardware shop.
Bunnings doesn't sound like a hardware store either. Neither does Mitre 10 or True Value. It's not a bad name when you compare it to those.
I think this is a shame, I liked the competition, however I never went to Masters because I would have to literally drive past 3 bunnings to get there.
I think that Masters was/is a good thing for competition and will be missed if they cannot find a buyer (which I doubt they will). Wish Woolworths would pull their heads in and actually do something right for once.
someone will buy it at the RIGHT price….. It might be a fire sale and go really cheap, as something is better than nothing.
Worst thing that ever happened in Australia was letting bunnings buy hardware house. Killed all competition in the market place.
As someone who worked for BBC hardware in my youth, I cannot agree with you more. Could never understand how the ACCC/government ever let this happen!
We bought our fridge and washing machine from Masters at a fantastic price. Shame to lose competition in the market
Their decision on Masters wasnt a surprise, but their decision to also wind up their Home Timber and Hardware stores is. That side of their business was actually pretty profitable. Could have downsized and rebranded the Masters stores into Home Timber and Hardware stores.
I suspect they will find a buyer for the Home Timber Hardware business, but will wind down Masters.
so anchorage can buy up masters and it can have daily sales then in 2 years history repeats itself?
with the extra 10% value on giftcards as sweetener
Yes, you can almost see the news articles… "Anchorage turns around Masters in a profitable company in 45 days, something Woolworths couldn't do in 4 years. Now come and buy into the float at $500 a share…"
The one near my place opened only a month ago. It was the flagship for a new small shopping centre so those retailers must be filthy now. There was even a set of traffic lights specifically built from the main road to enter the whole complex.
Unlikely. Reggie74 shows as a Sydney member.
woah… traffic lights? They must have been expecting lots of traffic!! ;)
I am sad, very sad. Bunnings will monopolised the market. A sad day for customers.
That is exactly how I felt when I came across this news. I too liked masters. Majority of the times if the time it was an enjoyable shopping experience, unlike bunnings where very rarely you'll get some customer service.
Shame, I really like masters
David Jones is still building their new 'Powered by Masters' hardware department.
My local David Jones was building a new section to house Dick Smith products a few weeks ago. Maybe when an unrelated business moves into DJs it's a signal to sell…
Finally this will stop those keep posting the Masters 10% off every time they found a code on the dockets.
Oh no. The extra 10 byte worth of data that is hogging all the storage on the web server. Ahhh the horror!
Their pull out game is strong.
At least they have the balls to pull out unlike Dick.
The 'main' reason why Masters fails ?
Answer: They totally under-estimate the 'Better Home and Garden' effect ! Yes, that TV show watched by thousands of Aussie wife.The show uses every chance to promote Bunnings and most men are forced to watch Better Home and Garden with their partner …….
Most people shop at Bunnings because of its range, location and price(10% price beat).. I also shop at Masters, Amazon, Sydney Tools, Total Tools, Alltools when it suits me.. I don't think crappy variety shows make a difference
"….and price(10% price beat)"
Yes, unfortunately that policy has worked very well for Wesfarmers in particular. Competitors of Bunnings and Officeworks put up specials and still miss out on a lot of the sales as people use the sale price to get a better deal at Wesfarmer stores. While that may be great in the short to medium term for people who take advantage of it, it damages competition over the longer term I believe, and then we all lose out when the prices go up through lack of competition.
Bunnings being an earlier mover has snapped up all the good brands. Masters have virtually nothing except maybe Weber BBQs. Masters failed IMO because their purchasing division sucks. Take for example something as simple as a power extension cord. I don't want the standard bulky plugs. I want the flat ones that take up less space which Bunnings only stock. Just hundreds of tiny examples of why Masters is in the bin.
More people shop there because the think the price beat means cheap, then because of the price beat. But they definitely have location. Too often at Bunnings they will refuse a price beat because their version is not named the same as the absolutely 100% identical product sold be a competitor with a different name. It's a great strategy, implementing a price beat guarantee you pretty much never have to honour, gives the perception of cheap while being ridiculously overpriced.
Sad for competition, employees, consumers… I liked Masters, didn't feel I was overdressed as opposed to Bunnings :)
Next week will be Woolworths pulling out of the grocery and clothing businesses. All that will be left is poker machines and liquor stores and guaranteed profits
"Next week will be Woolworths pulling out of the grocery and clothing businesses. All that will be left is poker machines and liquor stores and guaranteed profits"
Don't forget their petrol cartel with Coles.
their backend over xmas was atrocious ..
I have tried Masters a few times but didn't warm up to them. Yes, they seemed to have more staff available at hand but to me their expert advice lacked conviction.
At Bunnings, there are times when there is no one around to help but when I find someone I get great support. Most times, the Bunnings folks explain things and then give their recommendation. Leaves me feeling convinced that they know their stuff. I went into buy a sander once and the guy that helped me spent close to 15 minutes explaining the various types, their pros/cons and even the best sort of refills for future use.
I generally visit Bunnings early in the mornings so there are less customers and more staff available to help.
P.S: Just my opinion.
Please don't take any advice from anyone at bunnings. Having said that I have come across ONE person (out of dozens) who knew what they were talking about. Sometimes I even put them to the test just for fun and listen to their dribble.
I think it's unrealistic for a salesperson to be an expert on everything from paving, to plumbing, to constructing a pergola, to erecting fencing. I take their advice with interest but always read up on the topic before making a purchase.
No, we don't expect that, but they at least need some knowledge with the product in their 'assigned' area. I once ask a Masters staff whether they have any power-board with 4 USB, and she told me to wait for someone, but that someone never come to help.
I knew the guy that runs the local Bunnings paint desk back when he was the regional manager at Wattyl. He used to visit our blokes on site to assess quality etc.
Easy way to find staff at Bunnings on a weekend…go straight to the mower section. Always 1-2 staff there selling. (Commission?)
Woolworths’ top priority is to do the right thing by our employees, suppliers, customers and shareholders, and we will act quickly and openly to minimise the impact of this decision.
If Woolworths is unable to sell all of the business and has to close any of the operations, it will seek to provide alternate employment opportunities within the Woolworths Group to all current Home Improvement employees.
Woolworths will honour all gift certificates, product warranties, returns, and lay-bys and the completion of any contracted home improvement projects such as kitchens, bathrooms and floor coverings. Any gift cards can already be used at other Woolworths Group stores.
respect.
"Any gift cards can already be used at other Woolworths Group stores." Does this include Masters only egift cards? They're still being offered at 7.5% discount at CR.
Didn't work at Woolworths when I tried a week ago.
I like shopping at masters as well, pity to see them go
Master's should be a little harder and stop being soft like Dick and just pulling out via the easy route.
not adding anything bfwiw:
Masters seems like a pharmacy that happens to have hardware products.
It's clinical, cold, staff wearing weird blue aprons, the shelving system in the 'toolshop', and half the stuff in there seems a bit foreign/unknown to me.Every time I've had to return something I'm given flak.
And god I hate their entrance/exit setup. not at all as welcoming as bunnings.. Their door alarm went off on an elderly gentleman the first time I was in there and he almost had a heart attack. It was probably his pacemaker that set it off.
Staff mostly seem like they just wanna get home to play xbox and have a bong.. like they don't really have a clue.. they just transfered there from a nearby woolies.
Their dunnies are much better.. i'll give them that.
Maybe Costco will take over the Masters Site still being built south of Adelaide, that would be great, imho.
I thought it was rather odd they were still building a new Store in SA when all the signs were there that they weren't going to be around. Hope there is a good sale, I've actually been waiting for it to get some major purchases if they are the right price. Feel for all the Staff though, last thing anyone needs, is to lose their job.
Same I hope Costco take over the Parafield store. All they need is a store between Marion/Airport ( Airport Masters? )/city and they'll be set for SA
Doubt they will go to the Airport Site, it's too close to the Kilburn Store, just need the South and North spots, doubt the will open more then 3 in SA, 3 was the original long term plan.
I reckon Parafield would be closer to Kilburn than Airport
Yeah, if they go north it would be further out then that, but it would work well down south. :-)
Oh wow, a massive Costco expansion.. they buy every Masters store location… I would buy a membership yesterday!
Got information from Canstar regarding negative feedbacks on Masters since.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/not-as-good-a…
THE STAFF ARE UNHELPFUL’
• Staff can be very vague about products and where they are in the store.
• It is sometimes hard to find staff to help you in our local store.
• Staff unhelpful and don’t know their products
• Staff are not that helpful, can be hard to find things.
• Mistakes at check-out with a mistake made on most visits.
• Some of the staff in the gardening section need horticulture experience, especially to give advice about plants.
• It can be hard to find staff for advice on hardware products.
• Customer service is poor. Not as helpful or available as Bunnings.
• Not enough staff in the late afternoon, evenings.
• Not enough staff.
• No staff to help you.
• Couldn’t find a salesperson to help for ages.
• It was difficult to find what I was looking for and no staff were available to help me, so I had to roam around until I found what I needed.
• The staff there are not helpful. They are good at talking or consulting but don’t help to lift or move the goods I bought. They are so lazy. At last I have to move the BBQ and furniture I bought by myself. Nobody helped me. They gathered together talking and chatting. They are so lucky to get this kind of job.
• Not a lot of assistance.
• Checkout operator was not particularly friendly.
• Trying to find a staff member to help took a very long time.
• Some of supervisory staff are autocratic.
• Was hard to find a staff member.
• Staff service is very poor below standard.
• Service can sometimes be slack.
• Staff rude — don’t understand sizing.
• Sometimes difficult to find a staff member.
• Not enough floor staff help.
• Have had a problem with click-and-collect once because staff couldn’t find the order. Would have been much quicker to find it myself in store.
• Occasionally can be hard to find someone to help me.
• Sometimes check-out service is not so good.
• The item was delivered at 8pm at night after several phone calls to see where it was — put on the wrong truck.
‘THE RANGE IS LIMITED’
• Poor quality of vegetable seedlings especially during the early part of the week as if they have sold out over the weekend and re-stocked.
• They sell too much Asian made poor quality things.
• Can’t find items, as they are not in a sensible order. Too many products that are out of category for a hardware store.
• The garden section needs more staff to keep the plants at premium. More variety of plants.
• They didn’t have everything.
• Limited range.
• Hard to locate what you’re looking for.
• It’s a little pricey with some items, it could sell a lot more plants if they weren’t so dear. And there are no trees planted in the car park, so there will never be any shade.
• Limited range, limited counters, not well organised, limited staff.
• Poor online catalogue with terrible ‘search’ system.
• Plants a bit dear.
• They had the wrong price at the self-service check-out.
• Lots of cheap and nasty rebadged brands.
• Items are not grouped together.
• The store layouts are terrible and they don’t feel like a proper hardware store.
• Limited range of product.
• There is not much choice with cleaning products and equipment.
• Some stock was out.
• Limited product brands.
• Prices are a bit steep.
• Many products more expensive than main competitor.
• Not all brands stocked.
• Some everyday items are very expensive compared to other retailers, garden range is bad and expensive.
• Range is rubbish overpriced and not really a hardware store where you can get real tool which will last a lifetime and not need to be replaced every six months or year so you come back and spend more money.
• Lack of product range and quality of some of the brands.
• Limited products compared to competitor.
• Range of products could be expanded.
• Don’t seem to have enough sales and promotions.
• Limited range.
• A bit expensive.
• Range of products could be better.
• Little more expensive than Bunnings.
• Prices slightly higher than opposition.
‘THE STORES ARE CONFUSING’
• Cafe/rest spot is small.
• Locations not so convenient.
• Feel lost when you walk into a big store and nothing is labelled.
• The lack of delivery options to outlying areas.
• Is a little more expensive than its competitor, store layout is difficult to navigate.
• Wished their stock was where it should have been, as they said they had another four lights there but couldn’t find them.
• Very long queue at the check-out. Very annoying and frustrating.
• Too far to travel.
• Needs to have more signage/larger signage to indicate aisle numbers, etc.
• Trying to find the article searched for is hard as the store is huge and where I would expect to find something is not always in the area expected.
• Layout is hard to manage.
• The check-out at the garden shop is often closed earlier than the rest of the store meaning that you need to push your trolley full of garden items down to the main cash registers.
• Do not like store layout.
• The car park is hard to get in and out.
• Not always conveniently situated.
• So big and a lot of walking if you need something at the other end of the store.
• I thought that the flooring in the store felt slippery it made me nervous to walk around.
• Website almost impossible to find what you want.
• There are not enough stores — I have to drive for 30 miss to get to one.
• Too far from the place that I live.
• Not enough stores around.
• Items show in stock in store when checking this online, but are out of stock when you visit the store straight after.
• The website isn’t very functional and sometimes the products are more expensive than Bunnings.
• Distance to store — Bunnings closer.
‘BUNNINGS IS BETTER’
• Not as good as Bunnings.
• Bunnings remains my personal preference.
• It’s just another Woolworths finger in a pie.
• Not as good a range of products and brands as Bunnings.
• Bunnings seem to do it better. Not sure what it is but the atmosphere and stock is better.
• Not as good as Bunnings. Plant selection poor and often in need of water. Disinterested staff.My local Masters is Mornington, VIC. I've only been there a couple of times as Bunnings is much closer. Both times the staff have been more interested in gathering together than serving or helping customers.
The store layout is weird. They not only have aisles but cross rows running between aisles. You can't see or know about these unless you actually walk past them.
They don't seem to group the items very well. I had trouble finding the items I wanted. Many items had no shelf pricing. I decided not going back again.
A plus is the ease of car parking but that's because not many people there.
Tldr version pls
Not just for Masters but a lot of this list can be applied to Bunnings and really any retail store.
Can anyone tell me what happens with extra warranty that was purchased at the time of sale?
It's a bit too early to ask that. Woolies still owns Masters, nothing has changed hands yet, Woolies only said they will start the process of disposing of Masters.
I don't know what Extra Warranty they offer at Masters, but it should be covered by the Insurance Company that supplies the Warranty.
Their Extended warranty is provided by a third party, will continue to be honored weather or not Masters are around.
A Masters store just opened up shop in my area. Wtf Woolies.
I think they would be much better fixing the problems than just blowing all those startup costs and capital.
The actual business model would seem sound if Bunnings is an example which means it's the execution that's faulty.
The only true obstacle would be if Bunnings have been stitching up the suppliers with higher purchasing power.Personally I'd like them both to get nicked though.
I am very nostalgic of the days you could go to a real hardware store and get help from the time you arrived by someone who knew what they were on about. When advice on the job, tools and materials was an integral part of the service.How can they fix it tho?
They tried sales, but Bunnings just undercut them (see the numerous Friday night battles).
Bunnings is ubiquitous to renovations. Bunnings also have a catchy song and slogan.They need to do what Bunnings does and then do it better. Lots of people don't rate Bunnings as a great experience either so surely Masters should be able to compete for some share of that 18 Billion market.
So here's some basics that I think are missing at Masters and somewhat from BunningsFirst thing is take customer service seriously. Answer the phones, reply to the emails make sure there are staff in the store. You can't buy something if there is no one to sell it and this is a constant problem at Masters.
Get rid of any teens/students who isn't there to work.
Give every single kid that comes in a balloon.
Have an ap with a drive through service with a guaranteed minimum waiting time.
Have phones set up around the store where you can pick it up and talk to an expert immediately.
Have a rolling demonstration show out the front on weekends.
Set up community groups and sponsor them to do community improvement projects.
Have fact sheets available at every department, Give out materials checklists with the factsheets.
Follow rules of customer interaction, be friendly, make eye contact, use both hands and hand customer purchased items.
Throw out any cost cutting measure that reduces customer service.…so they should throw MORE money at a business that is bleeding money every day?
@zeggie: Maybe. Seems like it is possible to be viable, Bunnings 1 bil profit FY15.
Bugging out now isn't going to get back the money they have lost.Numbers we've been told at the moment are profit in 2019, annual loss of $200mil. Potential 1 billion to exit business.
I'm sure this is simplistic but seems better to cop another 500 mil loss over 3 years to gain a profitable business than spend 1 bil to exit now.
I was expecting a headline like "Woolworths takes out Dick and pulls out of Masters"
As a Woolworths shareholder from December 2007-2014 I made the decision that enough was enough. I sold 95% of my shares and put the profits into the mortgage.
What ineptness and utter stupidity it was for Woolworths to enter into a market that was not going to be a success. The big wigs at Bumnings must be all cracking the champagne tonight. Nobody will dare compete with them for the forseeable future in Oz unless someone comes in with a fully online venture.
Too little too late from Woolworths. Is BigW next? Never say never.
I only ever bought 2 things from Masters since they opened in Roxburgh Park VIC - A lawn edger and a doormat.
Sterile, lacking culture and doomed from the start.
Bumnings
Intentional?
Yep, thats the name of their new venture into South Africa due to trademark rights. Video of the grand opening here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
You bloody bastard. Here I thought that the Rick Roll'd meme was dead.
Well i for one would rather support a business that emphasizes quality over quantity. I think masters just over judeged the market and tbh im suprised they were wrong. Anyone who does some serious DIY at home will know the difference between the two. Otter nails; i remember being a young kid. Their was no other brand. Back before their was bunnings. Grab a 75mm nail from the 2 stores and try driving it into hard wood, see which one bends first.
Hilti, Bosch professional series (blue) vs low end Dewalt and Makita. Theirs no comparison.
I guess the majority of the market want the cheapest option but i prefer my things to last.
Couldn't have said it better. Masters stock a lot more quality items compared to Bunnings. Masters' closure now gives Bunnings reason to introduce more and more crap quality items and to make them more overpriced than they already are.
I now do a lot of my hardware shopping at local stores such as Tile Importers and Robot Trading (Melbourne) because the prices are much cheaper than Bunnings. I'll buy my power tools from places like Total Tools and Sydney Tools (online) because I am not interested in Ryobi and Ozito, and the Bosch/Makita tools that Bunnings sell are also not great quality these days. Masters at least sold Panasonic/Hitachi. I also appreciated the range of Bosch products that Masters sold (jigsaw blades, sanding discs etc) that are much better quality than the brands that Bunnings sell.
This is a sad sad day!
I've no idea if this is representative of the entire chain, but I feel they may have over-done it with the push into eBay and Click & Collect. Bought a dyson from them late december, which was apparently in stock at Canberra, only for them to tell me it was a special order. 3 weeks later I get the call to go collect it, and it wasn't even the right model?? And the service desk is hammered with similar click & collect woes, with people around me also waiting 10+ minutes for someone to go pick the order.
I'll echo the location problem though, Canberra airport is the only option in ACT, but there's a Bunnings in every major district pretty much. 5 minute drive vs 20 minute drive…only advantage to Masters here is that it's across the road from Ikea when you need tools to assemble your flat-pack goodness!
I did an assignment during uni on masters predicating this. For the exact same reasons people have stated why they didn't like it.
Point of difference:
Bunnings actively employs older people with plenty of DIY and life experience and seems to assign them to the best area for them based on their personal skill sets. I have often gone to Bunnings after a particular item, say a pipe fitting and be told to "speak to Terry in aisle 23, he knows all about pipes" etc.
My local Masters on the other hand is run buy a motley crew of older lesbians and uni students. They are OK but mostly have NFI about product specifics.
The lesbians can be a bit scary. Some are nice also.
Agree with Tightarse.
Always annoyed me so much when I go to a huge virtually empty Masters store with more staff than shoppers, and yet get useless support.
There are a few reasons why Masters has failed, and service has nothing to do with it. I have been to Bunnings and found their service poor at times, it all depends on who you get. With such large companies, the difference in service is hard to measure as one customer may find Masters service level to be poor just from going there once and vice versa with Bunnings. Both companies have good and bad staff, like any other large company. Main reasons for Masters failure:
Master is too clinical for a hardware store. If you think about 'Hardware' stores in the good ol days they were dusty, dirty etc, they were not clinically clean. Masters is more like a supermarket or department store i.e big w, kmart etc than a hardware store. The perception is that its more up market than places like Bunnings etc. It doesn't feel like a Hardware store, the colour schemes are strange and its like the company has an identity crisis (are they a hardware store or department store)
Masters have come in way too late to compete with Bunnings. People are already familiar with Bunnings stores, their layouts and stock. Going to Masters has no real benefit. There is nothing new that Masters adds to the hardware shopping experience, same example why Dick Smith is failing…which is mainly the companys failure to differentiate itself from competition, well enough to entice consumers to come in and shop.
Bunnings has that perceived cheap warehouse feeling where consumers feel like they are getting a good deal, when in reality Bunnings is a huge rip off. With their immense buying power, the prices at Bunnings should be a fair bit lower. Lack of strong competition in the hardware sector is why Bunnings has poor pricing for their buying power.
Just opened up in penrith….. next door to dicks….. master dick maybe?
We have been unable to find any MASTERS stores near your specified location.
Please check your spelling or try another Postcode or Suburb and State.^ this probably doesn't help.
Bunnings were first on the market, they got to buy land during the GFC when it was cheap for commercial land. Their running costs are much lower than Masters. Masters stores are 50% larger on average than Bunnings stores (varies by store).
Masters spent a fortune on land trying to break into the market aggressively, this means their operating costs are much higher than Bunnings (Bunnings earns about $30m / store, Masters would need to make $28m just to cover running costs - and they make much less)
Bunnings has hugely benefited from the perception they are cheap, even though they are far from it.(They'll have the lowest prices guaranteed on items that are very similar but not exactly the same as what you can get anywhere else for less).
Masters didn't focus on the higher margin basic hardware and instead spent a lot of money on expensive home-goods stock that already had a competitive market.
Masters didn't spend as much on ex-tradie staff etc to earn them the required 'street cred'
Bunnings got most of their land 20-30+ years ago - Before the term "GFC" was even coined.
Their land holdings are so profitable, it was spun-off and listed on the stock exchange - decades ago. Today, it is a money printing factory.
ASX code: BWP
As a small business owner, thought of some ideas that could save the brand. Now to find the $ to buy it.
- Hire more retired tradies. Advertise this hard. Bunnings did this in the early days.
- Adopt more 'cheap, better and best'. For example I recently tried to buy a cordless angle grinder at masters, cheapest was $229. Bunnings had one close to half that price. I didn't care what it was, just wanted a it for a few small jobs. And in general thats what mosts people tools are used for.
- Cut off a decent whack off each store and convert it to retail stores that attract more foot traffic. Add another reason to go travel to masters. Struggling for ideas here.
- Forget about whitegoods. Margin low, size on shelf high.
- Stock a bigger range of small parts you need to get a job done. Recent example, fitting new down pipes- bunnings- every shape you could imagine of fittings. Master had 15,45 and 90 degree fittings. This is more important than stocking fridges. And the margin is HUGE,
- Fix the website and click & collect and the phone system.
- Create a real identity. Masters has no face.
- Removal all self serve checkouts.
Now to find the $ to buy it.
Crowd funding
Don't forget the hipster two colour Texta artwork on butcher's paper