[DFB FGXR6]

Originally Posted by arm79

I was wondering when someone was going to point this out.

People forget that labor is expensive. Which ultimately makes it expensive, read too expensive, to run a business in "the old ways".

But they are all slow. If I wanted a hose from the irrigation sore I had to wait for them to cut it. Only ever one or 2 staff in the store, I'd be waiting 20 mins for someone to serve me. Or have a handful of stuff and have to wait 10 mins to be served. But the stuff was good, support small business and it was cheap.

One day I had to wait 15 mins for someone to cut me 2m of hose and their prices had gone through the roof. 2m of hose for twice the price of Bunnings and a 15 min wait. Rinse and repeat at other stores.

I don't have to time or inclination to spend all that time waiting for someone to serve me, only to pay the same or more as at Bunnings.

This sounds like the local Water Dynamics we had in town. The crucial word there is HAD, they are now long gone. Similar story to you, as in early on you would be in and out with what you needed in short order. But then the amount of staff running the shop dwindled to the point where you'd be waiting 15-20min to be served, quite often for a single item that you needed for a repair. Time is money and all.

Then there was the fact you couldn't really serve yourself, even though I'd go in there with a list of stuff I needed for a job and knew exactly where everything was on the shelf. But they didn't put prices or barcodes on anything on the shelf. So, you had to have the staff member with you so they could write it down on a pad of paper and enter it manually onto the computer. This isn't like it was 20 - 30 years ago, they were just so out of date.

So unfortunately Bunnings is the first stop now. Only visit the other stores when I need something out of the norm I know Bunnings don't keep.

They've built a model that is quick, cheap and effective. Somewhere I can walk around for an hour and get pretty much everything I want from a number of options and go home. Not have to spend hours driving from one side of town to the other to various shops.

This is pretty much me now as well. I would once run all over town trying to get what I needed, it was a giant waste of time that often was lost productivity that I wasn't being paid for.

Personally I think the price increases are more greed on part of the owners than actual cost rises, but that's another story.

I can only comment on what I observed over 20-years working for an independent business, but it's easy to assume that the owners were being greedy with their considerable price premiums.

I was recently told how much profit they made per $1.00................and it wasn't much at all. By the time they paid for rent, staff and all of the other running costs, no one was buying a Rolls Royce. You either charge accordingly or go out of business. They have been in business for over 40-years, sticking with that pricing strategy has worked so far, but I always seemed to be trying to explain why "our" prices were higher, as in our product was superior and that we don't have the buying power.

The problem here is they can't make up the shortfall in volume because of the lack of floor capacity and a supply chain gear towards Bunning's. The other problem, which is going to be their downfall, they refuse to modernize the business. As the older generation of their customer base move out of the market (due to age, downsizing), the lack of stock control and a shortfall in modern retailing technique, well you have a newer generation of customers that will simply go elsewhere.