Kittyhawk
Established Member
In the middle of a big home renovation just now so visiting the local hardware/home handyman store a lot.
In these hard times for retailers most people in the village are shopping locally to show support for our businesses rather than chasing better prices further afield, but it would appear that this solidarity is not being reciprocated.
A sheet of 16mm MDF was needed to fabricate cupboard doors and so on, but was told by the store 'we don't stock that anymore, nobody wants it.' Also, I required sheets of 400 grit for inter coat sanding which drew the same response, 'nobody asks for it.'. And Hettich metal drawer sides of which they used to stock plenty - 'nobody buys them'. So that's me, their customer, Mr. Nobody.
And it gets worse. I needed 1.8m of framing timber. Our store keeps a large stock of all timber grades which they sell by the metre - or used to. The minimum length now for sawn timber is 4.8m which makes my 1.8m requirement expensive. The same goes for electrical cable. I wanted 1m of 1mm TPS, $2.50/m. But now I have to buy a 10m roll for $28.65. So the little wiring job cost has increased by 1000% . And we can't buy sandpaper by the sheet anymore. It comes prepackaged in pretty little 4-sheet bundles, one 80 grit, one 120, one 180 and one 240. Again, a costly exercise if you want half a dozen sheets of 240 grit. Pozidrives - the 50 screw packets are disappearing in favour of the 250 packets ...and the list goes on. All this has occurred just over the last few weeks.
My benevolence is wearing a bit thin in what has all the hallmarks of a right royal shafting by a big name hardware chain trying to prop up their business at the expense of their customers. And they have the nerve to say that they are 'holding their prices in these difficult times.'
I am told that this bulk retailing is the way of the future and wonder if others are having the same experience or whether alienating your customer base is just a NZ phenomenon.
In these hard times for retailers most people in the village are shopping locally to show support for our businesses rather than chasing better prices further afield, but it would appear that this solidarity is not being reciprocated.
A sheet of 16mm MDF was needed to fabricate cupboard doors and so on, but was told by the store 'we don't stock that anymore, nobody wants it.' Also, I required sheets of 400 grit for inter coat sanding which drew the same response, 'nobody asks for it.'. And Hettich metal drawer sides of which they used to stock plenty - 'nobody buys them'. So that's me, their customer, Mr. Nobody.
And it gets worse. I needed 1.8m of framing timber. Our store keeps a large stock of all timber grades which they sell by the metre - or used to. The minimum length now for sawn timber is 4.8m which makes my 1.8m requirement expensive. The same goes for electrical cable. I wanted 1m of 1mm TPS, $2.50/m. But now I have to buy a 10m roll for $28.65. So the little wiring job cost has increased by 1000% . And we can't buy sandpaper by the sheet anymore. It comes prepackaged in pretty little 4-sheet bundles, one 80 grit, one 120, one 180 and one 240. Again, a costly exercise if you want half a dozen sheets of 240 grit. Pozidrives - the 50 screw packets are disappearing in favour of the 250 packets ...and the list goes on. All this has occurred just over the last few weeks.
My benevolence is wearing a bit thin in what has all the hallmarks of a right royal shafting by a big name hardware chain trying to prop up their business at the expense of their customers. And they have the nerve to say that they are 'holding their prices in these difficult times.'
I am told that this bulk retailing is the way of the future and wonder if others are having the same experience or whether alienating your customer base is just a NZ phenomenon.
