@@AnyoneSeenMikeHunt bunnings customers are more loyal to the brand due to familiarity, a fuel station doesn't have that. Fast food usually opens near each other, but they sell slightly different things to try and win the consumer. Bunnings and Masters sold almost the exact same thing but with a minor difference to avoid the 10%
@@warmishcomet "Bunnings and Masters sold almost the exact same thing" because they are exactly the same company. Also all hardware stores sell the same thing or else they wouldn't be hardware stores now would they. Just as Coles and Woolies sell exactly the same thing next to each other in the same shopping centre. Those two are also exactly the same company btw. Owned by the same mob that own Bunnings.
@@thewatcherofawesomecontent Bunnings and Masters have the same major shareholder ownership and therefore the same senior board member influence, in effect exactly the same mob just a different coloured shed. Have you considered Masters was a venture capital tax write off against their balance sheet from day one and was never planned to be competent or successful? Where did the stock end up? Did they lose money on all the real estate and construction? Did they end up paying any tax? Australians seem to know sausage sizzles but are oblivious as to how global corporates and their money works.
Masters was good, the problem was that they carried many brands that were largely unknown to people more accustomed to shopping at Bunnings. Some big suppliers were basically threatened by Bunnings to stay out of Masters or they would find their stock removed from the green shed. The stores were also brighter, cleaner and initially the staff were a lot more knowledgeable and friendly. Bunnings stores by comparison were drab, dirty and cluttered places (and pretty much still are today) and good luck getting someone with some knowledge to assist you on the weekend! My local Bunnings installed new lighting at the same time a Masters store opened around the corner, and the overall experience in Bunnings improved significantly. If there is one thing Masters did, it’s that it gave Bunnings the kick in the pants it needed to smarten itself up a bit. Once Bunnings had destroyed Masters (although I would argue that a lot of the damage done to Masters was self inflicted), Bunnings got big headed and tried to take over the UK hardware market too. Bunnings got a taste of their own medicine as their entry into the UK market was an absolute disaster! The reason Masters sold white goods was because of the American influence of Lowes. In the US white goods are often considered fixtures like the kitchen cabinets, so it was considered normal to have those appliances available in the same place you would buy the kitchen cabinets.
The reason you will never find a stocked item at Bunnings and get 10% off, is that Bunnings tells its suppliers that if they allow any of their customers to sell at a lower price than Bunnings, their product will never sell in a Bunnings store again.
I worked in the head office of Bunnings at the time this happened, Masters failed becaused they tried to open too many stores at once. They were loosing over 100 Million dollars a year. Also Bunnigs has a loyal customer base and the new stores didnt offer anything to entice those customers to shop somewhere else.
Bunnings didn't get the UK market, everyone I know like it here. But they didn't stock stuff for trade and didn't go hard for the trade here. All sites in the UK use 110v, they didn't stock any 110v tools. So eliminated the trade completely from when considering going there. Also the staff didn't know anything and weren't friendly (UK staff are never friendly in any shop btw) it felt like a Chinese knock off version of Bunnings.
I always felt bad for the sausage sizzle sellers at Masters, they never seemed anywhere near as busy as those selling sausages at the nearby Bunnings. But that’s because the Masters store itself was never busy.
If I’m not mistaken I’m pretty sure Masters announced they were shutting down just a day or two after opening their Penrith store in 2016, with the store basically opening up with a closing down sale. 😂
It's a shame Masters failed as Bunnings effectively has no competition in the the big box hardware space and so can screw over suppliers and keep their retail prices high. It's not surprising Bunnings never has sales as without competition they don't need to.
Cheltham Rd in Keysborough Vic had a Masters and Bunnings directly opposite each other, it was a consumers dream. Looking back I wished Masters had succeeded, would have been better for consumers as a whole.
My only experience with Masters was walking into a store and asking a staff member where something was. That person had no idea what I was even talking about. I left, went to Bunnings and was told exactly where to find the item. What I hate about Bunnings is the long line at the only register open, while the self-serve registers remain closed. I’ve dumped the products I was buying and walked out on many occasions. I think Bunnings have become very complacent over the years
I have a trade card and the power pass app is great for that. Let's me scan and pay when there's big lines. Usually on a Sunday afternoon. I was studying engineering and applied for masters. I passed on the technical knowledge, but failed on arbitrary people skills which most people I'd met at masters sucked at on top of having NO knowledge. Also the layout sucked.
So the only one open counter thing is even true in aus? I live in one of the handful of major cities in nz and they never have a second cashier active at bunnings
So let me get this straight, you walked into a Masters, once, encountered a staff member who didn't know where something was and never returned 😏 am I getting that straight? So, have you ever been to a Bunnings and found no one interested in serving you? Or maybe misdirecting you. Funny that happened to me just last week. Well, I wish I had the luxury of never frequenting them again. Oh wait, there's no competition anymore, so no chance of that
The abandoned Masters in Canberra near the airport in now a Bunnings, and I gotta say out of the five Bunnings in Berra, it’s my favourite one, due to its sheer size.
It’s a great place, except most Canberrans only head out to Majura if you have to (although I suppose it’s not that far Civic). For the rest of us, our local (Tuggers) has 99.9% without the hassle of heading all the way out to Majura if. Although I’m surprised they never built one in Woden somewhere.
I know a couple of people in the Bunnings world and normally Bunnings has specific goals and targets about sales etc, like every company does. But when Masters opened this all went out the window and the ONLY goal was to ‘kill off Masters’. I guess it worked!
As someone who worked for Woolworths at the national corporate level throughout the Masters fiasco, I think your assessment is pretty spot-on. One salient point that I think you missed was that when they first kicked the business off, all of the other Woolworths Divisions (Supermarkets, Big W, Dan Murphys, BWS, Logistics, Loss Prevention, Risk, HR, etc) were required to transfer a number of their employees across to staff the new venture. As human nature would dictate, the various Divisions almost exclusively, sent their worst performers across (because why would you get rid of your own high performers?), and so the end result was that Masters ended up being staffed, almost exclusively, by inept, lazy , or just plain dud performers, from Store Manager level right up to the top levels of Management. That factor, coupled with the others you pointed out meant the venture was probably doomed from day one, an opinion that a lot of us in the upper levels of Woolies management held very early on in the piece!
That’s so bad. Wouldn’t you train your employees first before opening the store? Sending the worse ones? Didn’t they realize that’s some kind of cannibalism?🤦♂️
@@irasponsibly Dick Smith was killed by private equity scumbags, not by Woolies or online shopping. As for Jaycar (which was actually started by some ex-Dick Smith guys which explains why its so much like what Dick Smith was in the good old days), they are great (in that they are probably the only real place left you can buy electronic components, micro-controller and single-board-computer stuff etc etc without having to order online.
I got a brand new Rover mower from Masters for 159 dollars. Still got it. Funny thing is when it was still under warranty I hit a brick and broke the main shaft. I went to my local repair guy and he said that's not a rover. It was actually made in Hungary. I called up the warranty line and they tell me where to take it which was a half hour drive away. The guy at the repair shop said the damage was caused by yourself. When I told you I've purchase from Masters. He that's right then we'll fix it, they won't look into it. What I used to hate about Masters is Staff would jumping on you as soon as you walk in wanting to help. You get ask like 20 times. I guess now in Bunnings I can't find a staff help me
Half my time in bunnings has been finding someone to get me spray paint from the forbidden cabinet because apparently kids can cause more damage with the spray paint than any non cabinet aerosols or the buckets of black paint you can just grab... There's a reason I stick to mitre 10 mega when I'm not on a time crunch, live closer to bunnings but FML they suck.
Mitre 10 Mega was actually the first rival to Bunnings. South Australia only had one built in Modbury. Though it opened in the mid 2000s, it only lasted for a short time before being converted to Bunnings. Three Masters stores in Adelaide Airport, Mount Gambier and a 'supposed' one in Noarlunga were converted to Bunnings while the supposed one in Parafield was converted to a tradie's electrical store called TradeZone.
I remember there was a Masters where I grew up in Lismore NSW, which was literally right next door to Bunnings. It was hilarious to see the car park in Bunnings full, where, in contrast, the Masters parking was near empty every time I drove past them.
In Taree NSW they built a whole new building for Masters, it's the City Council now, just chucked a new logo on it and left it as is, gardening section and all
The Williams Landing Vic store was closed and demolished not just the roof and walls but the concrete slab too they crushed it on site and sold the recycled concrete sold per tonne why the building could not been used like many of the others still puzzles me. Also Sunbury had one directly across the road from a Bunnings same in Burnside which I remember the McDonald's inside closed after only a few months which was a sign of trouble because when does a McDonald's close down after a short time from being opened if ever. My kids did love the blue racing car trolleys. Great video 👍
They would have done a cost analysis and determined that was the best option They probably found it was harder to sell with a building Vs without. More buyers for land with a clean slate rather than having to consider the cost of demo before being able to build what you want.
I much preferred Masters over Bunnings… the Maccas, the Aircon that worked during summer and the prices were all reasonable. One of the major reasons Masters failed, and you kind of touched on this a little. Location… and demographic confusion. Other than some that had close proximity to a Bunnings, Woolworths also aimed their stores to be near emerging neighbourhoods. So basically, aiming toward tradies who already had an established relationship with a trade provider, yet as you said, their stores were not designed for the tradie demographic. For example. You’d think the first store you’d open in Adelaide, or should I say South Australia, would be one based in a metro location with access to heavy foot and customer traffic. Nope! South Australia’s first store was just on the outskirts of Mount Gambier. Closely followed by Adelaide Airport (which I think was only open less than a month) and then was going to be followed by Parafield which, yes, that was less than a 2 minute walk from Bunnings. You’d see the pattern too in Victoria like the store at Werribee and so on… Unlike Westfarmers when they opened World 4 Kids, that was just to knee Toys R Us in the nads, hamper their expansion and then run off shutting all W4K locations folding them into Kmart. Woolworths had every intention for Masters to be successful, they just had no clue and ultimately were led astray by Americans telling Australians what we want. Mind you, if they tried again now, they might be a little more successful.
How were Masters not designed for the trade demographic. They were exact copies of Bunnings in every aspect. Consider that just because it's posted on RUclips by a youngster, it just may not be overly accurate. Just saying... Dorainn maybe show some fortitude and don't delete this comment like you have others
@@originalsusser They were new, their deliveries were unreliable, their inventory was unreliable, especially in areas with burgeoning demand, their suppliers were from the US, not used to the way homes and such are built (and yes, it was VERY different to here back then), Bunnings already had contracts with multiple home builders and contractors and had a steady and reliable buyer and suppliers for their inventory. It wasn’t just the stores themselves it was the whole backend that was a disaster for the tradies they were aiming for.
@itsluek I don't want to be superficial, but you don't look like the sort of person who would know what you say is fact, with the exception of pre standing accounts. That's simply a fact of reality that a company that has been existing will always have a stronger customer account base than one starting out. One doesn't have to be Einstein to work that out. I'm personally aware of Bunnings account customers going to Masters for items not in stock at their nearest Bunnings. I'm interested in how your conclusions are formed?
I live in Rowville, Victoria. Our local Masters was just up the road in Knoxfield. It was built with a McDonald’s on the same land and room for future retail chains or other enterprises next to it. Biggest issue is that they built it right across the road from Bunnings. Only ever bought two things from there, a hacksaw and a toilet seat. I was the only vehicle in the car park when I purchased them. The Bunnings car park was all full both times. Tells you all you need to know.
As someone who works for Woolies, the two big reasons it failed, which you correctly stated, was the winter stock from the USA sent to Australia in summer, and the summer stock coming in winter, plus the Dulux paint withdrawal absolutely killed the paint department. Very accurate video and well put together.
When Masters opened an air-conditioned store next to a Bunnings at Box Hill South (Vic), they installed cooling in the Bunnings, but at the nearby Nunawading Bunnings, the customers and staff just continued to sweat it out. So many people looked no further than Bunnings - a home-handy work colleague told me he had never even stepped inside a Masters - how dumb was that? They stocked many superior products, eg. Bosch tools instead of Ryobi crap.
That's the problem, for me tradesmen it doesn't matter. But for experienced ones they have a certain tools they've tried and tested and know work so stick to the same tool.
@Robert-cu9bm jfyi Masters sold many of the same brand trade tools as everyone else. Not everything was different there. If you'd been there, you would know that!
You keep bringing up the mandurah one but tbh you should be talking about the Armadale WA / Forestdale as some call it. They were not even a 1 min drive apart on the same road.
I remember masters and only wish I went and bought some white goods while they sold them so cheap. I had no idea they did that. I used to go Mitre 10 first and Bunnings seconds, but since Bunnings took over my area, it's always Bunnings. I don't think I ever went into a Masters store.
Am hoping Dorainn will eventually do a doco on Bunnings unsuccesful attempt at cracking the English market. His Anko and Bunnings vids are intelectual gold!
I tried Masters a few times and never really liked it. It felt like a hospital more than hardware shop. Our closest one was West Gosford. And there was a Bunnings just across the road. There was another one in Heatherbrae which converted to a Bunnings when Masters closed down.
At the time of the collapse, they were building one in Nowra, NSW, about 600m south of the existing Bunnings, both of which were on the Princes Highway. The first time it opened was 2019, when Bunnings used it as an interim store while they built their new, bigger one. That closed in 2021, before becoming a Home Co.
@@5fifty Good to know thanks. Well it's a bit closer to town so that's convenient. The only trouble I ever had with that location was getting onto the roundabout on Princess highway from the slip road fast enough to make the break in the traffic, with half a tonne of bags of concrete in the back of the car 😂
Great content once again, this is Johnny Harris /Wendover stuff in the Australian Context. Keep up the good work hopefully more people find this content. One thing that baffles me when a big entity goes belly up and no one has ever been able to explain this to me . Who takes the hit when losses run into the 100's of millions. Did Woolies and Lowes have this capital in reserve that they just lost a bad bet on , or did the bank (or investors) have top pump this capital in to keep it operational for years. or does someone just writes this all off because they have so much capital to begin with. On a personal scale if you owe the bank anything they are quick to hunt you down to recover whats owed to them, what happens on this huge monolithic scale.
It's the shareholders that take the hit! Btw I wouldn't consider Jonny Harris worthy of comparing with Wendover. He is a well known shill who inaccurately disseminates information to fit his narrative. There have been several very well researched expository docs on him the best of which was by Money & Macro who was even positively responded to by JH in the comments
You inadvertently answered some of your own questions. Basically Bunnings, Masters, Woolworths and Lowes are the same company. The capital you question all comes from the one single venture capital group. The 4 big banks in Au are also owned by this same group. The liquidation company, real estate companies, legal companies etc are all also owned by this same group. Do see how this is connected? There are no 'losses' perse, that's all just a singularity not the big picture. As for who takes the hit it is ultimately the Australian taxpayer. It doesn't cost us money but it is money that goes untaxed due to Australia's 'unique' way of creative accounting acceptance for the big boys in the big club.
It's the shareholders that take the hit. Woolies market capitalisation in 2016 was $37b. Masters $200+m loss though contributing to an overall loss that year $1.2b was a drop in the bucket. Hopefully you are no longer baffled!
Thanks for the explanation everyone, basically it was an inconvenient night at the black jack table for those executives who decided to take a punt . And they knew when to cut thier losses and just move on…got it
@@originalsusser As the major shareholders of Woolies, Bunnings and Masters are the same mob what do you think they do with that 'loss'? Have you considered Masters was a venture capital tax write off against their balance sheet from day one and was never planned to be competent or successful? Did they lose money on all the real estate and construction? Did they end up paying any tax? Corporate venture capital creative accounting understands exactly what they're doing. It is money that goes untaxed due to Australia's 'unique' way of creative accounting acceptance for the big boys in the big club. Australians seem to know sausage sizzles but are oblivious as to how global corporates and their money, power and influence works. There is nothing baffling about it.
I remember when they announced Masters was coming after Bunnings, Wesfarmers stock took a serious hit and I decided to buy some. It worked out very well for me because I could see some of the problems they were going to have, I didn't predict there complete collapse, but I didn't think Masters could seriously impact Bunnings for at least ten years.
Masters did the total opposite of everything that was spelt out in the Home Depot biography So strange that nobody picked up a copy and actually read it
Putting stores right next to each other is a solid business move - it stops people just going to the closest store, and they have to choose. And then you can compete (or try to).
When I ran a tool shop in Brookvale in the 90s, there were 5 tile shops within walking distance of each other. We had three competing tool shops within a km of our shop plus a Bunnings. The simple way to attract competition was to be successful
The biggest problem for Masters is that they built stores in the wrong places. They built too many stores in some places and not enough (or none at all) in others. There was ONE Masters store in all of Logan City (and it was not that far from a Bunnings store and even that Bunnings was easier to get to than the Masters, let alone the other 4 or 5 Bunnings in Logan) and I don't think they had a single store on the south side of Brisbane (at least I don't know of any). Even worse, I think they built ONE store for the entire city of Adelaide for some stupid reason. Quite a few stores though were located in places that made a lot of sense to put them in. The Upper Coomera store was a great location, no competition in the area at all, same with the one they built in Robina (which is now a Bunnings), there was no real competition at the time. Oh and what was mentioned about Masters not being considered a hardware store, I believe several state governments made the same determination when it came to things like trading hours which meant that Masters didn't get the special trading hour rules that applied to Bunnings and other hardware stores which further hurt their ability to compete with Bunnings.
I worked in a Danks hardware shop while all this was going on. First thing that really burned danks franchisees was start offering a click and collect type service via Woolworths which directly cut into home hardware. I asked the danks rep if any of these had bounced off the back of his head, while brandishing a rolled up masters catalogue I got from woollies, 3 doors down the street.
My business partner and I visited Masters out of curiosity a few times. Each time we found the prices were higher, particularly for plants, the range filled with obscure brands we’d never heard of, and the customer service really bad, even compared to Bunnings ordinary standard. We found no good reason to shop there. I don’t like Bunnings, they’ve pretty much killed off most independent hardware stores, virtually every nursery small or large and now they are killing off landscape suppliers.
Part of issue too, was Masters was waaaayyyy the fuck outta the way where we lived prior (it was like another 3km further out of town). Prices were hit & miss
When I discovered the Masters store in Innisfail, it was much bigger than Bunnings but rather empty and quiet. Even now I doubt the building is fully occupied.
my mum worked at masters from when it started to when it closed!! seeing all the absent blue buildings around melbourne is like witnessing massive gravesites just waiting to be taken over
Because Masters sold Whitegoods. The West Australian Government didn't classify Masters as a Hardware Store. This means regular 9am to 5pm Trading hours applied to all Masters stores in WA. When Bunnings could open at 6:30am and close at 10pm. Sunday Trading restrictions in WA hurt Masters even worse. Bunnings could trade between 7am to 7pm on a Sunday. Masters on the other hand could only trade between 11am to 5pm.
I find it hilarious that after this Bunnings then opened up their model in the UK and had their arse handed back to them by BnQ, essentially for not understanding the very seasonal UK market
They also didn't stock product for trade, trade is a massive market in Bunnings. 110v is site voltage in the UK, and they sold no 110v. I also think they didn't offer click and collect from memory. The UK is notorious for not have products in stock, so people clock and collect to confirm it's available.
Bunnings is a bully running a monopoly but it does so unchecked because it wins over drongos with sausage sizzles and this idea that it cares about you like it's one of your mates (protip, it doesn't). The lack of competition is a detriment and the fact that they lowered their paint from $30 to $17.50 in an attempt to undercut Masters was a clear example of competition showing their ability to sell things cheaper but nowadays refusing to do so out of greed and knowing it can get away with it. It's customers are cucks.
I went to a Masters once looking for a padlock - a simple task made harder by their weird retail ideas. The locks [of all kinds] were on circular 'stands' that you had to go round and round - after exhausting one stand I moved to another, and another. Seriously, what on earth is wrong with an AISLE with all the padlocks on one side and all the 'door' locks on the other? [or further along the aisle] - AH! - I have now found ALL the Padlocks! Stupid Woolworths KNOWS how to retail stuff [Big W] - I mean is Lowes like that? - it's Shit! Oh, and I did contract work for Bunnings for many, many, horrible years - I had all my friends trained to call it "Evil-corp" in my presence.
2:23 They did concider buying Mitre 10, which come to think of it bought Danks instead. The turntables. 7:33 Stores were either 1. Sold and converted to HomeCos, some were sold again. 2. Leased back out to Bunnings Warehouses, sometimes next to Woolworthses it built 3. Abandoned and only recently leased out. There is an abandoned store in Carrum Downs, probably due to its freehold arrangement preventing it from being sold to HomeCo and it being next to a new Bunnings. There used to be an abandoned store in Burnside but it was converted to a third party homemaker centre maybe for the same reason. You should have talked about the troubles with dissolving the joint venture and getting the underwriters to sell the stock at a reasonable price (and also Bunnings saying they can’t beat Masters because it is a stock liquidation).
Too many glaring inaccuracies to go into but one I cannot ignore was the 'seasons' thing. I know you are young, possibly too young to fully remember Masters with any adult sensibility but selling winter products in summer & vice a versa... Really? This suggests heaters were rolled out late Nov & fans in April. Same with gardening products, etc. An absolutely ridiculous inaccuracy that suggests the rest of this presentation was as equally poorly researched. Lowe's may have been American but Masters management was entirely based in Australia, you know, where the southern hemisphere seasons are at
As a customer who shopped at both I can put Masters failure down to 2 main reasons 1. Bad store locations with not enough parking, 2. Weird A erican influenced product mix.
Can someone answer this: COULD Masters have succeeded? How little did they need to change from Day Zero and it would have turned out very different? (I wonder if Woolworths has this discussion yearly).
Ferntree Gully Rd Scoresby Vic had Bunnings on one side and Masters directly on the other side. I went there one day and was looking for a particular product that Bunnings was out of stock (as usual) I asked one of the staff for the product and they stated they do not stock them and go to Bunnings. I went to the next isle and there it was. This was 2014 and I knew then the writing was on the wall for Masters.
Wow 2014 in the hardware game reminds me of 15 years earlier in Super League - two giants bleeding everywhere, both pretending everything is fine. But you know the fireworks are temporary so you start taking pictures. P.S., do the Super League war!
You haven’t mentioned anything about the supplier lock in from Bunnings! That was a massive reason why they won out. They basically prevented Masters from stocking the same major brands because of the risk that Bunnings would stop stocking/delist them. Masters then had to source alternate options which didn’t always resonate with customers. Consumers lost out with the loss of Masters.
I think bunnings warehouse is so built into where we would want to shop, some of us wouldn't even cross to think to go to masters and we would automatically think bunnings. Masters was probably about 15 years to late into the field to make people automatically think about what hardware shop to go to.
I just had a dream where some Masters were preserved by some NGO so I visited a Masters in a remote town which was forced to move to steep hill to be next to a motorway, then the NGO went into voluntary administration as part of the current mini-recession and considered closing all the bankrolled Masters. A long time ago I dreamt that Masters still existed in like the Philippines, similar to how Esprit and Payless Shoes collapsed
And yet as a final irony, just as Masters didn't understand their market, Bunnings made the same fatal mistake with their ill fated "BUKI" (Bunnings UK and Ireland) venture which was an abysmal and costly ($800M AU) failure.
In the 1st year they deliberately employed/ head hunted people who were in the trades to work at their stores. In the end though that was their actual biggest downfall because of the wage cost.
Brilliant! My first foray to Masters was to check screwdrivers & they were all low quality as if aimed at students. My second was for screws etc., but couldn't find any; later I found they had them in draws..wtf?! By the time they were closing & discounts got bigger, I worked out the store layout & grabbed some mega bargains. Not a winning strategy for them though & the arrogance continues with the latest fight with their warehouse employees..
You’re kinda missing the core issue. Masters bought the stock and had to wear that on their balance sheet. Bunnings don’t buy a thing, they are a shelving company who sells/rents the shelf space to suppliers. Staff don’t touch the the stock, suppliers come in every night/morning to restock the shelves they have rented. That and their Walmart/coles style HR model of average weekly hours, not regular hours (ie average weekly 38 hours could be 20 hours in winter and 60 hours at Xmas). Bunnings don’t wear anything on their balance sheet other than deductibles.
If Masters went with the proven Bunnings vendor refill model they may of stood a chance. They had no experience in the market that they had entered and went it alone, while the proven Bunnings model of vendor refill may have given them a chance providing more valuable input and assistance from their suppliers. Masters was actually really good. Well some stores were and ultimately their failure has resulted in the horrible Monopoly that is Bunnings. I.e. the Australian consumer is far worse of without Masters in the market to provide and alternative and keep Bunnings somewhat honest.
Holding stock of crappy products and only crappy products and then selling it in bulk at an unbelievably good price still didn’t want me to buy said crap. I kept having to go to Bunnings to get a better product and not a better bargain. “Masters”, just like “fresh food” is just a gimmick when it is not supported by reality.
I used to enjoy Masters. I did think about some of the decisions. White goods? Gun safes etc. American culture? Bunnings were sneaky with the price challenge. Even now they have weird products like three screws. Shame but such is life. Hopefully we can get another contender come in and give them a go
Masters pandered to the new and established home makers market along the lines of Better Homes and Gardens and less to the tradie / DIYer although I found their prices on a range of goods quite comparative when compared to Bunnings for similar items.
Consumers are the big losers. Now we have an entrenched gorilla in the industry earning monopoly profits and offering slipshod service. Most prominent large retail property sites are occupied, and we're all consigned to overpaying for our hardware needs.
I found it strange and in poor taste how Masters air conditioned enormous warehouses, while Bunnings used the more energy efficient evaporative cooling and no winter heating.
Nowra couldnt even get its Masters finished before it got shut down. For a bit it was abandoned before being temporairly a bunnings while the main bunnings was being rebuilt. now its a Home Co.
The idiots in authority at Woolies de-stocked all hardware items from Big W and said that customers should use Masters instead. Nearest Big W to me was 4km, nearest Masters was 800km!!!! With stupidity from on high such as that, is it any wonder they went bust? The thing that irritates me about Bunnings is that there stores are freezing in winter and so oppressively hot in summer that you duck in there, get exactly what you need and flee. There is no browsing, it is too unpleasant.
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during your induction at Bunnings they have a whole section on why masters failed.
Opening stores so close to existing Bunnings instead of areas that were not serviced by Bunnings was the most idiotic move they could have made
Yet service stations are next to each other, fast food competitors open next to each other... Idiotic?
@@AnyoneSeenMikeHunt bunnings customers are more loyal to the brand due to familiarity, a fuel station doesn't have that. Fast food usually opens near each other, but they sell slightly different things to try and win the consumer. Bunnings and Masters sold almost the exact same thing but with a minor difference to avoid the 10%
@@warmishcomet "Bunnings and Masters sold almost the exact same thing" because they are exactly the same company. Also all hardware stores sell the same thing or else they wouldn't be hardware stores now would they. Just as Coles and Woolies sell exactly the same thing next to each other in the same shopping centre. Those two are also exactly the same company btw. Owned by the same mob that own Bunnings.
A competent version of Masters, would have been a benefit to us all.
@@thewatcherofawesomecontent Bunnings and Masters have the same major shareholder ownership and therefore the same senior board member influence, in effect exactly the same mob just a different coloured shed. Have you considered Masters was a venture capital tax write off against their balance sheet from day one and was never planned to be competent or successful? Where did the stock end up? Did they lose money on all the real estate and construction? Did they end up paying any tax? Australians seem to know sausage sizzles but are oblivious as to how global corporates and their money works.
Masters was good, the problem was that they carried many brands that were largely unknown to people more accustomed to shopping at Bunnings. Some big suppliers were basically threatened by Bunnings to stay out of Masters or they would find their stock removed from the green shed.
The stores were also brighter, cleaner and initially the staff were a lot more knowledgeable and friendly. Bunnings stores by comparison were drab, dirty and cluttered places (and pretty much still are today) and good luck getting someone with some knowledge to assist you on the weekend! My local Bunnings installed new lighting at the same time a Masters store opened around the corner, and the overall experience in Bunnings improved significantly.
If there is one thing Masters did, it’s that it gave Bunnings the kick in the pants it needed to smarten itself up a bit.
Once Bunnings had destroyed Masters (although I would argue that a lot of the damage done to Masters was self inflicted), Bunnings got big headed and tried to take over the UK hardware market too. Bunnings got a taste of their own medicine as their entry into the UK market was an absolute disaster!
The reason Masters sold white goods was because of the American influence of Lowes. In the US white goods are often considered fixtures like the kitchen cabinets, so it was considered normal to have those appliances available in the same place you would buy the kitchen cabinets.
The reason you will never find a stocked item at Bunnings and get 10% off, is that Bunnings tells its suppliers that if they allow any of their customers to sell at a lower price than Bunnings, their product will never sell in a Bunnings store again.
I worked in the head office of Bunnings at the time this happened, Masters failed becaused they tried to open too many stores at once. They were loosing over 100 Million dollars a year. Also Bunnigs has a loyal customer base and the new stores didnt offer anything to entice those customers to shop somewhere else.
Bunnings didn't get the UK market, everyone I know like it here.
But they didn't stock stuff for trade and didn't go hard for the trade here.
All sites in the UK use 110v, they didn't stock any 110v tools. So eliminated the trade completely from when considering going there.
Also the staff didn't know anything and weren't friendly (UK staff are never friendly in any shop btw) it felt like a Chinese knock off version of Bunnings.
I really liked masters, pity they failed. That said, if I knew they were overmanaging employees and making them do chants, I woudlnt have gone either
@@neilfrasersmith Do they? Isnt that resale price maintenance?
If only Masters sold meat pies instead of sausage sizzles they might have had a chance against their arch menace Bunnings
I always felt bad for the sausage sizzle sellers at Masters, they never seemed anywhere near as busy as those selling sausages at the nearby Bunnings. But that’s because the Masters store itself was never busy.
If I’m not mistaken I’m pretty sure Masters announced they were shutting down just a day or two after opening their Penrith store in 2016, with the store basically opening up with a closing down sale. 😂
omg!! i feel bad for those employees who thought they had a job
It's a shame Masters failed as Bunnings effectively has no competition in the the big box hardware space and so can screw over suppliers and keep their retail prices high. It's not surprising Bunnings never has sales as without competition they don't need to.
if you think that's bad you never experienced how crap hw used to be
Cheltham Rd in Keysborough Vic had a Masters and Bunnings directly opposite each other, it was a consumers dream. Looking back I wished Masters had succeeded, would have been better for consumers as a whole.
And also in Carrum downs, literally on the same block. Cranbourne 500m up the road. Same as Knox on Ferntree gulley Rd.
My only experience with Masters was walking into a store and asking a staff member where something was. That person had no idea what I was even talking about. I left, went to Bunnings and was told exactly where to find the item.
What I hate about Bunnings is the long line at the only register open, while the self-serve registers remain closed. I’ve dumped the products I was buying and walked out on many occasions. I think Bunnings have become very complacent over the years
I have a trade card and the power pass app is great for that. Let's me scan and pay when there's big lines. Usually on a Sunday afternoon.
I was studying engineering and applied for masters. I passed on the technical knowledge, but failed on arbitrary people skills which most people I'd met at masters sucked at on top of having NO knowledge.
Also the layout sucked.
So the only one open counter thing is even true in aus?
I live in one of the handful of major cities in nz and they never have a second cashier active at bunnings
So let me get this straight, you walked into a Masters, once, encountered a staff member who didn't know where something was and never returned 😏 am I getting that straight? So, have you ever been to a Bunnings and found no one interested in serving you? Or maybe misdirecting you. Funny that happened to me just last week. Well, I wish I had the luxury of never frequenting them again. Oh wait, there's no competition anymore, so no chance of that
The abandoned Masters in Canberra near the airport in now a Bunnings, and I gotta say out of the five Bunnings in Berra, it’s my favourite one, due to its sheer size.
Something similar happened to the Masters in Perth, It closed down and became an excellent Bunnings with lots of space
It’s a great place, except most Canberrans only head out to Majura if you have to (although I suppose it’s not that far Civic). For the rest of us, our local (Tuggers) has 99.9% without the hassle of heading all the way out to Majura if.
Although I’m surprised they never built one in Woden somewhere.
Because Bunnings and Masters are the same company. Make sense now?
@@Whomobile Where specifically do you mean by "Perth"?
@@AnyoneSeenMikeHunt ?
I know a couple of people in the Bunnings world and normally Bunnings has specific goals and targets about sales etc, like every company does. But when Masters opened this all went out the window and the ONLY goal was to ‘kill off Masters’. I guess it worked!
Are they friends with Mitre 10?
As someone who worked for Woolworths at the national corporate level throughout the Masters fiasco, I think your assessment is pretty spot-on. One salient point that I think you missed was that when they first kicked the business off, all of the other Woolworths Divisions (Supermarkets, Big W, Dan Murphys, BWS, Logistics, Loss Prevention, Risk, HR, etc) were required to transfer a number of their employees across to staff the new venture. As human nature would dictate, the various Divisions almost exclusively, sent their worst performers across (because why would you get rid of your own high performers?), and so the end result was that Masters ended up being staffed, almost exclusively, by inept, lazy , or just plain dud performers, from Store Manager level right up to the top levels of Management. That factor, coupled with the others you pointed out meant the venture was probably doomed from day one, an opinion that a lot of us in the upper levels of Woolies management held very early on in the piece!
That’s so bad. Wouldn’t you train your employees first before opening the store? Sending the worse ones? Didn’t they realize that’s some kind of cannibalism?🤦♂️
Do the story of dick smith electronics
Another business Woolworths broke.
I did watch a similar RUclipsr do it
Killed by online shopping, and Jaycar is the closest thing to a replacement - but they're not doing well either.
@@irasponsibly Dick Smith was killed by private equity scumbags, not by Woolies or online shopping. As for Jaycar (which was actually started by some ex-Dick Smith guys which explains why its so much like what Dick Smith was in the good old days), they are great (in that they are probably the only real place left you can buy electronic components, micro-controller and single-board-computer stuff etc etc without having to order online.
Ever heard of “Please do the story…”?
I got a brand new Rover mower from Masters for 159 dollars. Still got it. Funny thing is when it was still under warranty I hit a brick and broke the main shaft. I went to my local repair guy and he said that's not a rover. It was actually made in Hungary. I called up the warranty line and they tell me where to take it which was a half hour drive away. The guy at the repair shop said the damage was caused by yourself. When I told you I've purchase from Masters. He that's right then we'll fix it, they won't look into it. What I used to hate about Masters is Staff would jumping on you as soon as you walk in wanting to help. You get ask like 20 times. I guess now in Bunnings I can't find a staff help me
@@theaussienurseflipper.8113 I can never remember a time when Bunnings staff were easy to find
Half my time in bunnings has been finding someone to get me spray paint from the forbidden cabinet because apparently kids can cause more damage with the spray paint than any non cabinet aerosols or the buckets of black paint you can just grab...
There's a reason I stick to mitre 10 mega when I'm not on a time crunch, live closer to bunnings but FML they suck.
@InsanityPlusOne tip. Paint cabinet not locked
Mitre 10 Mega was actually the first rival to Bunnings.
South Australia only had one built in Modbury. Though it opened in the mid 2000s, it only lasted for a short time before being converted to Bunnings.
Three Masters stores in Adelaide Airport, Mount Gambier and a 'supposed' one in Noarlunga were converted to Bunnings while the supposed one in Parafield was converted to a tradie's electrical store called TradeZone.
Excellent video as always mate. My favourite part of MASTERS was the clearances closing down sales😂
I remember there was a Masters where I grew up in Lismore NSW, which was literally right next door to Bunnings. It was hilarious to see the car park in Bunnings full, where, in contrast, the Masters parking was near empty every time I drove past them.
In Taree NSW they built a whole new building for Masters, it's the City Council now, just chucked a new logo on it and left it as is, gardening section and all
love your videos mate! they're so well edited and put together!!
The Williams Landing Vic store was closed and demolished not just the roof and walls but the concrete slab too they crushed it on site and sold the recycled concrete sold per tonne why the building could not been used like many of the others still puzzles me. Also Sunbury had one directly across the road from a Bunnings same in Burnside which I remember the McDonald's inside closed after only a few months which was a sign of trouble because when does a McDonald's close down after a short time from being opened if ever.
My kids did love the blue racing car trolleys.
Great video 👍
Apparently the builder sold it and it got rezoned. Then nothing happened, probably due to the pandemic.
They would have done a cost analysis and determined that was the best option
They probably found it was harder to sell with a building Vs without.
More buyers for land with a clean slate rather than having to consider the cost of demo before being able to build what you want.
I much preferred Masters over Bunnings… the Maccas, the Aircon that worked during summer and the prices were all reasonable.
One of the major reasons Masters failed, and you kind of touched on this a little.
Location… and demographic confusion.
Other than some that had close proximity to a Bunnings, Woolworths also aimed their stores to be near emerging neighbourhoods. So basically, aiming toward tradies who already had an established relationship with a trade provider, yet as you said, their stores were not designed for the tradie demographic.
For example. You’d think the first store you’d open in Adelaide, or should I say South Australia, would be one based in a metro location with access to heavy foot and customer traffic.
Nope!
South Australia’s first store was just on the outskirts of Mount Gambier. Closely followed by Adelaide Airport (which I think was only open less than a month) and then was going to be followed by Parafield which, yes, that was less than a 2 minute walk from Bunnings.
You’d see the pattern too in Victoria like the store at Werribee and so on…
Unlike Westfarmers when they opened World 4 Kids, that was just to knee Toys R Us in the nads, hamper their expansion and then run off shutting all W4K locations folding them into Kmart.
Woolworths had every intention for Masters to be successful, they just had no clue and ultimately were led astray by Americans telling Australians what we want.
Mind you, if they tried again now, they might be a little more successful.
Was World 4 Kids owned by the same company as Toyworld?
@ No, Toyworld is independent.
How were Masters not designed for the trade demographic. They were exact copies of Bunnings in every aspect. Consider that just because it's posted on RUclips by a youngster, it just may not be overly accurate. Just saying... Dorainn maybe show some fortitude and don't delete this comment like you have others
@@originalsusser They were new, their deliveries were unreliable, their inventory was unreliable, especially in areas with burgeoning demand, their suppliers were from the US, not used to the way homes and such are built (and yes, it was VERY different to here back then), Bunnings already had contracts with multiple home builders and contractors and had a steady and reliable buyer and suppliers for their inventory.
It wasn’t just the stores themselves it was the whole backend that was a disaster for the tradies they were aiming for.
@itsluek I don't want to be superficial, but you don't look like the sort of person who would know what you say is fact, with the exception of pre standing accounts. That's simply a fact of reality that a company that has been existing will always have a stronger customer account base than one starting out. One doesn't have to be Einstein to work that out. I'm personally aware of Bunnings account customers going to Masters for items not in stock at their nearest Bunnings. I'm interested in how your conclusions are formed?
I live in Rowville, Victoria. Our local Masters was just up the road in Knoxfield. It was built with a McDonald’s on the same land and room for future retail chains or other enterprises next to it. Biggest issue is that they built it right across the road from Bunnings. Only ever bought two things from there, a hacksaw and a toilet seat. I was the only vehicle in the car park when I purchased them. The Bunnings car park was all full both times. Tells you all you need to know.
As someone who works for Woolies, the two big reasons it failed, which you correctly stated, was the winter stock from the USA sent to Australia in summer, and the summer stock coming in winter, plus the Dulux paint withdrawal absolutely killed the paint department. Very accurate video and well put together.
When Masters opened an air-conditioned store next to a Bunnings at Box Hill South (Vic), they installed cooling in the Bunnings, but at the nearby Nunawading Bunnings, the customers and staff just continued to sweat it out. So many people looked no further than Bunnings - a home-handy work colleague told me he had never even stepped inside a Masters - how dumb was that? They stocked many superior products, eg. Bosch tools instead of Ryobi crap.
No one wants to spend money on quality tools anymore.
Plus Bosch is still Chinese crap.
All the brands are making there and all have gone downhill.
We had a masters, also built next to our existing Bunnings. After it shut down it’s now a spud-shed and Sydneytools
Ellenbrook?
As a tradesmen, I much preferred shopping at Masters. They had a different selection of products that we weren’t used to in Australia.
That's the problem, for me tradesmen it doesn't matter. But for experienced ones they have a certain tools they've tried and tested and know work so stick to the same tool.
@Robert-cu9bm jfyi Masters sold many of the same brand trade tools as everyone else. Not everything was different there. If you'd been there, you would know that!
You keep bringing up the mandurah one but tbh you should be talking about the Armadale WA / Forestdale as some call it. They were not even a 1 min drive apart on the same road.
Really wonderfully made content :) very much looking forward to seeing more of what you have to cover
I remember masters and only wish I went and bought some white goods while they sold them so cheap. I had no idea they did that. I used to go Mitre 10 first and Bunnings seconds, but since Bunnings took over my area, it's always Bunnings. I don't think I ever went into a Masters store.
It's great to see analysis of an Aussie company for a change!
Great video! Another failed retail venture that comes to mind is OFIS, an Officeworks competitor that was perhaps shorter-lived than even Masters!
I find it funny that Bunnings took over some of the old masters stores
ironically my local Masters never even got to open... they all closed like a month before mine was set to opened...
Amazing as always, keep it up!
Am hoping Dorainn will eventually do a doco on Bunnings unsuccesful attempt at cracking the English market. His Anko and Bunnings vids are intelectual gold!
@@roygardnerra450ah yes the Bunnings UKI disaster. Comes up in my next video!
@@Dorainn yes thanks, have always wondered what happened
@@Dorainn If it is as good as these vids it should be a blockbuster
I tried Masters a few times and never really liked it. It felt like a hospital more than hardware shop. Our closest one was West Gosford. And there was a Bunnings just across the road. There was another one in Heatherbrae which converted to a Bunnings when Masters closed down.
Wow - how much of the decor changed when it converted to Bunnings? Did anything at all stay from before?
I actually preferred my local masters store back in the day... It was cleanee. Bigger.well priced...
I was sad when they closed
Masters put a store right next to a Bunnings in Lismore.
At the time of the collapse, they were building one in Nowra, NSW, about 600m south of the existing Bunnings, both of which were on the Princes Highway. The first time it opened was 2019, when Bunnings used it as an interim store while they built their new, bigger one.
That closed in 2021, before becoming a Home Co.
Wow, I thought that 2nd store further south was a permanent move for Bunnings Nowra. So they knocked down and rebuilt the first store?
@@John-p7i5g Yes, opened a few years ago now.
@@5fifty Good to know thanks. Well it's a bit closer to town so that's convenient. The only trouble I ever had with that location was getting onto the roundabout on Princess highway from the slip road fast enough to make the break in the traffic, with half a tonne of bags of concrete in the back of the car 😂
@@John-p7i5g Still got to get out at Spanline or what ever is in there now, though.
Great content once again, this is Johnny Harris /Wendover stuff in the Australian Context. Keep up the good work hopefully more people find this content. One thing that baffles me when a big entity goes belly up and no one has ever been able to explain this to me . Who takes the hit when losses run into the 100's of millions. Did Woolies and Lowes have this capital in reserve that they just lost a bad bet on , or did the bank (or investors) have top pump this capital in to keep it operational for years. or does someone just writes this all off because they have so much capital to begin with. On a personal scale if you owe the bank anything they are quick to hunt you down to recover whats owed to them, what happens on this huge monolithic scale.
It's the shareholders that take the hit!
Btw I wouldn't consider Jonny Harris worthy of comparing with Wendover. He is a well known shill who inaccurately disseminates information to fit his narrative. There have been several very well researched expository docs on him the best of which was by Money & Macro who was even positively responded to by JH in the comments
You inadvertently answered some of your own questions. Basically Bunnings, Masters, Woolworths and Lowes are the same company. The capital you question all comes from the one single venture capital group. The 4 big banks in Au are also owned by this same group. The liquidation company, real estate companies, legal companies etc are all also owned by this same group. Do see how this is connected? There are no 'losses' perse, that's all just a singularity not the big picture. As for who takes the hit it is ultimately the Australian taxpayer. It doesn't cost us money but it is money that goes untaxed due to Australia's 'unique' way of creative accounting acceptance for the big boys in the big club.
It's the shareholders that take the hit. Woolies market capitalisation in 2016 was $37b. Masters $200+m loss though contributing to an overall loss that year $1.2b was a drop in the bucket. Hopefully you are no longer baffled!
Thanks for the explanation everyone, basically it was an inconvenient night at the black jack table for those executives who decided to take a punt . And they knew when to cut thier losses and just move on…got it
@@originalsusser As the major shareholders of Woolies, Bunnings and Masters are the same mob what do you think they do with that 'loss'? Have you considered Masters was a venture capital tax write off against their balance sheet from day one and was never planned to be competent or successful? Did they lose money on all the real estate and construction? Did they end up paying any tax? Corporate venture capital creative accounting understands exactly what they're doing. It is money that goes untaxed due to Australia's 'unique' way of creative accounting acceptance for the big boys in the big club. Australians seem to know sausage sizzles but are oblivious as to how global corporates and their money, power and influence works. There is nothing baffling about it.
Those thumbnails 🔥🔥
I remember when they announced Masters was coming after Bunnings, Wesfarmers stock took a serious hit and I decided to buy some. It worked out very well for me because I could see some of the problems they were going to have, I didn't predict there complete collapse, but I didn't think Masters could seriously impact Bunnings for at least ten years.
I just remember the Masters being built right across the road from Bunnings in Keysbourough, it was interesting seeing it as a kid
Masters did the total opposite of everything that was spelt out in the Home Depot biography
So strange that nobody picked up a copy and actually read it
Putting stores right next to each other is a solid business move - it stops people just going to the closest store, and they have to choose. And then you can compete (or try to).
Wikipedia: Hotelling’s Law
When I ran a tool shop in Brookvale in the 90s, there were 5 tile shops within walking distance of each other. We had three competing tool shops within a km of our shop plus a Bunnings. The simple way to attract competition was to be successful
The biggest problem for Masters is that they built stores in the wrong places. They built too many stores in some places and not enough (or none at all) in others. There was ONE Masters store in all of Logan City (and it was not that far from a Bunnings store and even that Bunnings was easier to get to than the Masters, let alone the other 4 or 5 Bunnings in Logan) and I don't think they had a single store on the south side of Brisbane (at least I don't know of any). Even worse, I think they built ONE store for the entire city of Adelaide for some stupid reason.
Quite a few stores though were located in places that made a lot of sense to put them in. The Upper Coomera store was a great location, no competition in the area at all, same with the one they built in Robina (which is now a Bunnings), there was no real competition at the time.
Oh and what was mentioned about Masters not being considered a hardware store, I believe several state governments made the same determination when it came to things like trading hours which meant that Masters didn't get the special trading hour rules that applied to Bunnings and other hardware stores which further hurt their ability to compete with Bunnings.
I worked in a Danks hardware shop while all this was going on. First thing that really burned danks franchisees was start offering a click and collect type service via Woolworths which directly cut into home hardware. I asked the danks rep if any of these had bounced off the back of his head, while brandishing a rolled up masters catalogue I got from woollies, 3 doors down the street.
My business partner and I visited Masters out of curiosity a few times. Each time we found the prices were higher, particularly for plants, the range filled with obscure brands we’d never heard of, and the customer service really bad, even compared to Bunnings ordinary standard. We found no good reason to shop there.
I don’t like Bunnings, they’ve pretty much killed off most independent hardware stores, virtually every nursery small or large and now they are killing off landscape suppliers.
Part of issue too, was Masters was waaaayyyy the fuck outta the way where we lived prior (it was like another 3km further out of town).
Prices were hit & miss
When I discovered the Masters store in Innisfail, it was much bigger than Bunnings but rather empty and quiet. Even now I doubt the building is fully occupied.
amazing vid bro! keep it up
my mum worked at masters from when it started to when it closed!! seeing all the absent blue buildings around melbourne is like witnessing massive gravesites just waiting to be taken over
The Masters chant thing sounds like an anti union tactic as well as weird
It was an American import. That sort of nonsense is a daily ritual for stores over there like Walmart and so on.
Because Masters sold Whitegoods. The West Australian Government didn't classify Masters as a Hardware Store. This means regular 9am to 5pm Trading hours applied to all Masters stores in WA. When Bunnings could open at 6:30am and close at 10pm. Sunday Trading restrictions in WA hurt Masters even worse. Bunnings could trade between 7am to 7pm on a Sunday. Masters on the other hand could only trade between 11am to 5pm.
I find it hilarious that after this Bunnings then opened up their model in the UK and had their arse handed back to them by BnQ, essentially for not understanding the very seasonal UK market
They also didn't stock product for trade, trade is a massive market in Bunnings.
110v is site voltage in the UK, and they sold no 110v.
I also think they didn't offer click and collect from memory.
The UK is notorious for not have products in stock, so people clock and collect to confirm it's available.
@@Robert-cu9bm 110V in the US, 240V in the UK
Lowes had too much influence on it, that was obvious. They didn't know the Australian market at all.
I love these videos on Australian stores!
They rejected my job application 😂
It’s a monopoly. Bunnings have now gone down hill. Stores are cluttered and the staff haven’t got a clue
That's the choice of the consumer though.
The consumer chose to go to Bunnings over masters.
Bunnings is a bully running a monopoly but it does so unchecked because it wins over drongos with sausage sizzles and this idea that it cares about you like it's one of your mates (protip, it doesn't). The lack of competition is a detriment and the fact that they lowered their paint from $30 to $17.50 in an attempt to undercut Masters was a clear example of competition showing their ability to sell things cheaper but nowadays refusing to do so out of greed and knowing it can get away with it. It's customers are cucks.
Masters had better customer service then my local Bunnings... Local one been crap since day one
I went to a Masters once looking for a padlock - a simple task made harder by their weird retail ideas.
The locks [of all kinds] were on circular 'stands' that you had to go round and round - after exhausting one stand I moved to another, and another.
Seriously, what on earth is wrong with an AISLE with all the padlocks on one side and all the 'door' locks on the other? [or further along the aisle] - AH! - I have now found ALL the Padlocks!
Stupid Woolworths KNOWS how to retail stuff [Big W] - I mean is Lowes like that? - it's Shit!
Oh, and I did contract work for Bunnings for many, many, horrible years - I had all my friends trained to call it "Evil-corp" in my presence.
2:23 They did concider buying Mitre 10, which come to think of it bought Danks instead. The turntables.
7:33 Stores were either 1. Sold and converted to HomeCos, some were sold again. 2. Leased back out to Bunnings Warehouses, sometimes next to Woolworthses it built 3. Abandoned and only recently leased out. There is an abandoned store in Carrum Downs, probably due to its freehold arrangement preventing it from being sold to HomeCo and it being next to a new Bunnings. There used to be an abandoned store in Burnside but it was converted to a third party homemaker centre maybe for the same reason.
You should have talked about the troubles with dissolving the joint venture and getting the underwriters to sell the stock at a reasonable price (and also Bunnings saying they can’t beat Masters because it is a stock liquidation).
masters had guns? damn i missed it. i think i went 1 time seemed the same as bunnings.
Doubt it, maybe if it came out in the early 90s, but not after the national firearms agreement.
Sales are too strict and there's waiting periods.
Great video very insightful thank you.
Too many glaring inaccuracies to go into but one I cannot ignore was the 'seasons' thing. I know you are young, possibly too young to fully remember Masters with any adult sensibility but selling winter products in summer & vice a versa... Really? This suggests heaters were rolled out late Nov & fans in April. Same with gardening products, etc. An absolutely ridiculous inaccuracy that suggests the rest of this presentation was as equally poorly researched. Lowe's may have been American but Masters management was entirely based in Australia, you know, where the southern hemisphere seasons are at
Yeah, the "seasons" thing was misleading ...
Also. I think Grant Obrian was CEO at Woolworth's responsible for masters at the time.
Pakenham, VIC had a similar situation to Mandurah, with Masters opening within a 5-minute walk of Bunnings
As a customer who shopped at both I can put Masters failure down to 2 main reasons 1. Bad store locations with not enough parking, 2. Weird A erican influenced product mix.
Can someone answer this: COULD Masters have succeeded? How little did they need to change from Day Zero and it would have turned out very different? (I wonder if Woolworths has this discussion yearly).
I lived near one, went up in a month, went down in a month
Ferntree Gully Rd Scoresby Vic had Bunnings on one side and Masters directly on the other side. I went there one day and was looking for a particular product that Bunnings was out of stock (as usual) I asked one of the staff for the product and they stated they do not stock them and go to Bunnings. I went to the next isle and there it was. This was 2014 and I knew then the writing was on the wall for Masters.
Wow 2014 in the hardware game reminds me of 15 years earlier in Super League - two giants bleeding everywhere, both pretending everything is fine. But you know the fireworks are temporary so you start taking pictures.
P.S., do the Super League war!
Had a masters near me but now it’s a Bunnings. Nothing beats a Bunnings snag❤
2:33 That was like 5 mins away from where I live.
You haven’t mentioned anything about the supplier lock in from Bunnings! That was a massive reason why they won out. They basically prevented Masters from stocking the same major brands because of the risk that Bunnings would stop stocking/delist them. Masters then had to source alternate options which didn’t always resonate with customers. Consumers lost out with the loss of Masters.
I got my COVID vaccine in a building that was supposed to be a masters that didn't have it's interior layout installed
I think bunnings warehouse is so built into where we would want to shop, some of us wouldn't even cross to think to go to masters and we would automatically think bunnings. Masters was probably about 15 years to late into the field to make people automatically think about what hardware shop to go to.
8:50 - another example of go woke, go broke!
I just had a dream where some Masters were preserved by some NGO so I visited a Masters in a remote town which was forced to move to steep hill to be next to a motorway, then the NGO went into voluntary administration as part of the current mini-recession and considered closing all the bankrolled Masters.
A long time ago I dreamt that Masters still existed in like the Philippines, similar to how Esprit and Payless Shoes collapsed
I'd like to see your analysis on the Rise and Fall of Bunnings in the UK.
You had me at portal plushie
Definitely seen guns safes at both but never seen guns for sale outside of specialty stores.
And yet as a final irony, just as Masters didn't understand their market, Bunnings made the same fatal mistake with their ill fated "BUKI" (Bunnings UK and Ireland) venture which was an abysmal and costly ($800M AU) failure.
The gta 4 background noise is so soothing to my ears
i still have electrical cable rolls and roofing sheets from Masters liquidation sale.
i blew $2k that week
@3:00 Nothing dodgy to see here folks from the former minister. Move along
In the 1st year they deliberately employed/ head hunted people who were in the trades to work at their stores.
In the end though that was their actual biggest downfall because of the wage cost.
Brilliant! My first foray to Masters was to check screwdrivers & they were all low quality as if aimed at students. My second was for screws etc., but couldn't find any; later I found they had them in draws..wtf?! By the time they were closing & discounts got bigger, I worked out the store layout & grabbed some mega bargains. Not a winning strategy for them though & the arrogance continues with the latest fight with their warehouse employees..
You’re kinda missing the core issue.
Masters bought the stock and had to wear that on their balance sheet.
Bunnings don’t buy a thing, they are a shelving company who sells/rents the shelf space to suppliers. Staff don’t touch the the stock, suppliers come in every night/morning to restock the shelves they have rented.
That and their Walmart/coles style HR model of average weekly hours, not regular hours (ie average weekly 38 hours could be 20 hours in winter and 60 hours at Xmas).
Bunnings don’t wear anything on their balance sheet other than deductibles.
If Masters went with the proven Bunnings vendor refill model they may of stood a chance. They had no experience in the market that they had entered and went it alone, while the proven Bunnings model of vendor refill may have given them a chance providing more valuable input and assistance from their suppliers. Masters was actually really good. Well some stores were and ultimately their failure has resulted in the horrible Monopoly that is Bunnings. I.e. the Australian consumer is far worse of without Masters in the market to provide and alternative and keep Bunnings somewhat honest.
Bunnings failed big time when they tried to enter the UK market
Yes, the story of Homebase is an interesting one. Didn’t understand the UK market.
made the exact same mistake as Masters, so weird
@@av_oid
Homebase are smaller stores than b&q.
They didn't stock for the trade
The staff were the usual unfriendly Brits.
I never even got around to going into one to check it out lel
Holding stock of crappy products and only crappy products and then selling it in bulk at an unbelievably good price still didn’t want me to buy said crap. I kept having to go to Bunnings to get a better product and not a better bargain. “Masters”, just like “fresh food” is just a gimmick when it is not supported by reality.
I used to enjoy Masters. I did think about some of the decisions. White goods? Gun safes etc. American culture? Bunnings were sneaky with the price challenge. Even now they have weird products like three screws. Shame but such is life. Hopefully we can get another contender come in and give them a go
Masters pandered to the new and established home makers market along the lines of Better Homes and Gardens and less to the tradie / DIYer although I found their prices on a range of goods quite comparative when compared to Bunnings for similar items.
One thing it did do it force Bunnings to make their sites nicer.
It's because of masters Bunnings now have air con.
What Bunnings has A/C? Every Masters did
Consumers are the big losers. Now we have an entrenched gorilla in the industry earning monopoly profits and offering slipshod service. Most prominent large retail property sites are occupied, and we're all consigned to overpaying for our hardware needs.
I really enjoyed the Masters experience, I would prefer Masters anytime, but as it goes, it went down, as per this video, sad day. Oh well. 😪👍🇦🇺
I found it strange and in poor taste how Masters air conditioned enormous warehouses, while Bunnings used the more energy efficient evaporative cooling and no winter heating.
Nowra couldnt even get its Masters finished before it got shut down. For a bit it was abandoned before being temporairly a bunnings while the main bunnings was being rebuilt. now its a Home Co.
Bunnings had a similar loss when it tried to gain a foot hold in the the UK
The idiots in authority at Woolies de-stocked all hardware items from Big W and said that customers should use Masters instead. Nearest Big W to me was 4km, nearest Masters was 800km!!!! With stupidity from on high such as that, is it any wonder they went bust? The thing that irritates me about Bunnings is that there stores are freezing in winter and so oppressively hot in summer that you duck in there, get exactly what you need and flee. There is no browsing, it is too unpleasant.