Page 41 - HW1221

then as now
Then as now
– Dec 1991 & 2011
THE HISTORY OF the New Zealand hardware channel, as seen through the eyes of NZ Hardware Journal...
COMING & GOINGS IN DECEMBER 1991
With 1992 beckoning, 30 years ago this month we reported on the launch of a new cooperative called Excel Home & Hardware.
Its four Auckland outlets comprised John Wong’s Hardiman Hardware (Epsom), Grant Haskell and Trafalgar Hardware (Onehunga), John Frogley’s Ponsonby Home Centre and Colin Campbell and Chadwick’s (Papakura).
Excel was to last just three years.
A brand that is still around today, to say the least, is Germany’s OBI, and back in 1991 we had been talking with Manfred Maus, MD and co-founder of the even then massive DIY retailer.
Now aged 86, back in 1991 Herr Maus offered this sage
advice as OBI turned 21: “Anyone who wants to survive in this market has to be able to bridge the gap between expectation and reality...
“The consumer wants not only expert advice and service but also caring and convenience, friendliness, the personal touch and neighbourhood connection.”
We suspect that his advice remains just as relevant 30 years later, with OBI still the market leader in Austria and Germany with 350-odd stores, as well as 320 branches across Italy, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and a top line of €7.7 billion in 2018.
December 1991’s magazine also marked the passing of EW (Ted) Sinton, aged 85.
We said: “He may have passed away, but he will be remembered by those with whom he came
into contact as a man of integrity who has left a worthwhile contribution to the New Zealand hardware trade.”
From 1991, some familiar names and faces among the first 10 PlaceMakers
JV partners: Don Morris (PlaceMakers Timaru City); Alex Verwoerd (Thames); Bob Sandford (Riccarton); Joe Yellowlees (Washdyke); Kevin McLaughlin (New Plymouth); Keith Maslin (Gore), Jim Allan (Ashburton); Keith Lacey (Palmerston North); Steve Marshall (Wairau Park); and Jim Haisman (Morrinsville). Also pictured are PlaceMakers GM Keith Avery, JV development executive Ted van Arkel, and North Island Area Manager Peter Flay.
But 1992 wasn’t all bad
– it was also the year The Exponents sang Why Does Love Do This to Me.
DECEMBER 2011 – LUMPY AND GRUMPY
Moving from 1991 to 2011 now, 10 years ago this month, with the economy still up and down, we were talking about “lumpy growth”.
EW Sinton, the company
Ted founded back in in
1929, is now called The
Locksmiths and is still
proudly family-owned by Eric and Erica Sinton.
Polling the pundits for our December 2011 issue, we found the outlook towards the end of 2011 “quietly positive”, with Kiwi consumer confidence “treading water against a backdrop of growing international unease,” according to the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating.
Cameron Bagrie, then still with ANZ, and with Kiwi household debt having ballooned out, put it thus: “Consumers are going to be pretty cautious, for two reasons: one is the situation in Europe [which was still experiencing darker recessionary times]; that’s not pretty and I don’t think it’s going to settle down any time soon.
“Secondly, a precursor to people getting out there and
DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 | NZHJ 39
Just around the corner, 1992 was the year Rob Muldoon retired from Parliament and then passed away.
It was the year Shortland Street made its debut. MORE AT www.facebook.com/nzhardwarejournal
Back in 1991, we noted the sad passing of EW “Ted” Sinton, shown here with wife Win, but his spirit lives on, several family generations later, with The Locksmiths.
We also talked about “grumpy growth” – which didn’t so much describe the consumer’s attitude towards doing stuff around the
house as the market’s refusal to consistently swing one way or the other.
If Gary Whetton says it’s good, it must be good... Lockwood’s late 1991 merchandising launch played up the legendary former AB’s stature, literally.