Page 50 - HW September 2020

then as now
Stephen Ricketts (far right), mulls the plans for the new Hastings MEGA.
10 years ago, BuildLink was also busy further expanding its network, having just launched what was e ectively a “tier 2” type brand – Home Hardware.
e new brand was BuildLink’s answer to increasing buying power while also o ering independent hardware retailers the advantages of being part of a exible group.
BuildLink’s Kevin Marevich made no bones about where new members would come from: “ ere are a number of stores out there that have already left other groups, or are thinking of doing so, and they are interested in looking at new opportunities.
“Times are tough out there and there are a lot of people who feel it’s time to change their approach and look at a di erent way of doing things.”
ese days the BuildLink family comprises BuildLink, HandiLink (Home Hardware’s successor) and Trowel Trades.
Rewind again to September 2010 and a new Mitre 10 MEGA for Hastings was con rmed by developer Charter Hall for its Home HQ large format retail centre (now called the Park Mega Centre).
Mitre 10 MEGA Directors, Stephen (3) and Graeme Ricketts, had been working on various development options over the last couple of years, with the existing Hastings store at a mere 10,000m2 simply just too small.
Hastings’ Type 2 MEGA was after all the very rst MEGA to open, way back in 2004, and many lessons had been learned in the intervening six years about what large format home improvement retailing really meant.
AUSSIES PREPARE TO BATTLE IT OUT
10 years ago, the Aussie home improvement market was set for a big box battle royal between the incumbent, Bunnings, and a new entrant which would combine international smarts with depth of local knowledge.
A perfect combination you’d think...
In context however, already in 2010, experts were warning that Australian retailing would take years to recover with almost continual sales over the past year having “trained” consumers to expect and only accept reduced prices...
Research group TNS’s report Discount Retailing Study found that 65% of Australians perceived retailers’ sales were constant and that this cycle of discounting had set a precedent for Aussie consumers with many simply unwilling to pay full price.
“Consumers are no longer willing to accept the rst price they nd; they know there’s a good chance of nding it cheaper somewhere else. In essence the industry is training us to become professional, if not predatory, consumers,” said the report.
Be that as it may, Bunnings would soon be investing more than AU$600 million in a major New South Wales expansion involving 18 metro and regional sites over the next three years, including what was being billed as Australia’s biggest home improvement store in Alexandria.
At the same time, after a couple of year’s intense speculation, we were just able to be putting a name to the highly anticipated joint venture between Woolworths and Lowe’s which would enter the Australian home improvement market guns blazing in 2011.
Aiming for 150 sites over the next ve years, the JV would be called Masters and from 2011 it would combine the merchandising nouse of US #2 player Lowe’s with the local distribution of Danks and Woolies’ logistical smarts...
Far from achieving its bullish goals, the disastrous Woolworths-Lowe’s home improvement venture would last just ve years, until 2016, costing Woolworths and Lowe’s a packet and much corporate grief as the partners struggled towards a nal exit of the JV.
e best laid plans, as they say, then as now...
Having revealed the ill-fated Masters brand in 2010, the Chullora (West Sydney) store was the third in NSW and its 24th site when it opened in 2012.
48 NZHJ | SEPTEMBER 2020
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