A quiet day in the Masters car park
As mentioned in today’s Stock Take podcast, after last week’s update on Woolworths (see Woolies under the hammer), and following a shaming on our Ask the Experts forum where I had to admit I had never visited a Masters harware store, I decided this week to rectify that oversight.
I realised immediately why it had taken so long – they’re not exactly easy to get to. Looking it up on the Masters website I found that my nearest store (in Chullora, NSW) was 10km away – which seemed quite a long way until I saw that the next closest were about 50km and 130km away. This is what it means to have a network of only 30 stores.
The next thing I noticed was that the parking lot was very empty (see picture). It was admittedly a weekday morning, but it’s hard to imagine a Bunnings being so quiet.
A blue and uncrowded version of Bunnings
Overall, though, and contrary to expectations and general wisdom, I was reasonably impressed. It basically looked like a cleaner, tidier, blue version of Bunnings – well it was at least relatively unsullied by customers. There was all the stock you’d expect to find in a large hardware (except what I was hoping to find but we won’t go into that), including a particularly impressive range of power tools.
There were also some nice touches in terms of making the stores customer-friendly – a far better cafe than my local Bunnings, much more salubrious toilets and race-car trolleys for kids. Some of this comes down to the recent construction, but it also reflects Woolies’ customer focus.Overall my conclusions were mixed. Contrary to what I’ve heard, the ‘offering’ makes sense to me (have a coffee, buy a new power tool and take a pee) but my wife is always telling me I’m a niche market.
Salubrious toilets
It’ll be a while, though, before we really get an idea for how the business is travelling, because it needs to get a critical mass – more marketing, more being talked about and more being spotted on the side of the road – and that will only come with many more stores.
The breakeven date has been pushed back to 2016, when about two-thirds of the eventual store network of 150 stores is expected to be trading, and it’ll be hard to gauge before then.
That doesn’t stop us trying though, so if anyone’s got any thoughts on Masters, we’d love to hear them in the comments section below.