Ours, St Albans, became Bunnings and then went back again to Homebase! All the cost of rembranding, re-emplyment, store redesign...... management!
My local one was still branded as Bunnings when I went in there a few days ago. It's so much better than when it was a Homebase be because it's stocked to the rafters of actual DIY related purchases, not sparsely half full of household wares and some token DIY stuff. I'll be sad if it reverts.
My local one was still branded as Bunnings when I went in there a few days ago. It's so much better than when it was a Homebase be because it's stocked to the rafters of actual DIY related purchases, not sparsely half full of household wares and some token DIY stuff. I'll be sad if it reverts.
Same here. I love Bunnings. Homebase was a bit crap. I think they will have to revert to Homebase though, won't they? Because Bunnings as a brand still exists, at least in Australia, and is owned by Wesfarmers. So I assume the stores here can't remain with the same branding? I just hope that they keep the stock lines and the staff and the sausage sizzles and, well, everything except the brand!
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
FortheBees - yes I agree. So far our new (old) homebase has stayed with that BnQ look that Bunnings created. Before Homebase closed it really went downhill inviting in habitat and having pretty coffee bars dominating the front of the store - a real mess and full of frilly what nots of no use to anyone. Hopefully no return.
Found they were a lot more expensive than B & Q in the like for like, we found exactly the same make/pattern wallpaper was several pound more per roll. Hubby has just painted the outside of our bungalow, it was white, desided on light grey. Bought testers from B & Q, one looked white, the other too dark, no more testers in B & Q, so we went to Homebase yesterday, having spent so much money on testers, desided to bite the bullet, picked light grey Sandtext, 2 great big signs saying Hot deal only £22 for the 5lt size in either the smooth or textured. Got it to the cashier, it came up the original £29, told him about the deal, said we would have to go to customer service, big queue there, then women assistant, said that was an old deal, it now 3 for 2. Told her, there was no expiry date on the Hot deal £22, and why was it there then. I know the law actually says the price shown is merely an offer to buy and the shop do not have to sell it to you at the shown price, but her attitude sucked, so I wasnt letting her get away with it, she said I could have it at the £22 " just this once", we are only planning to paint the exterior "just this once". Honestly, there is no customer service anywhere anymore, with these shops closing they need to up their game and treat customers better. Course, Homebase stopped doing nectar points, I have a daimond card for B & Q, and see it said in the paper the other day, they are going to stop the discount on anything other than garden products, crafty!!
The trouble is, superficial DIY isn't as 'big' as it was - by which I mean painting and decorating, with some extra filler. Young people can't afford to buy houses, don't do DIY in rented ones. Older people who manage to get on the property ladder are usually raising families and working long hours to pay the mortgage, so don't have time for DIY, beyond the odd bit of wallpapering. And the building trade don't shop in Homebase - far too expensive, even just to pop in on the way to site to pick up something small - Screwfix have that market cornered, pretty much. So it's sitting in a grey area with a rapidly shrinking market and it needs to jump one way or the other - home furnishings like 'The Range' or better priced DIY like BandQ. Presumably 'old style' DIY is still big in Australia - maybe their property market isn't as badly out of whack as ours - which is why Bunnings thought they could make a go of it here. Sadly not. I feel a bit sad about it really. OH and I started out doing up our first house by shopping at the local Homebase. Now we have trade accounts with builders' merchants and the only time I've been into Homebase lately is to buy a houseplant in a fancy pot as a wedding gift.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Also online shopping must be hammering them pretty hard. Wickes is very cheap - like Screwfix. Generic parts can be had on Ebay for peanuts. I rarely go to any of the big box shops as I don't have a car and huge stores make my head spin.
When I lived in Farnborough 15+ years ago they built a new business park and we had a huge homebase and B&Q after about two years Homebase moved out of there premises and B&Q moved in the reason was the owners of home base could make more money by renting the space to B&Q, B&Q redeveloped their old site into smaller units and rented them out.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Homebase used to do offers at Easter/ bank holiday weekends, like 15% off ALL gardening, or ALL decorating but they seem to have stopped that. I used to stock up on compost and Hubby used to stock up on Farrow and Ball paint.
Fire: I would never use Wickes as our £14,000 kitchen install was an absolute disaster. On a three week build, (could have been done in 9 days) it took nearly eight months because of Wickes ordering wrong parts four times, delivering other peoples kitchen panels, not backing up their promise to be with us "every step of the way" delaying and being late, and employing substandard contractors who drilled holes into our living room wrecked rafters, miswired, kept failing to turn up and could not even fit a unit together properly. I have never seen anyone try to put two screws into one hole, until then. It took them three days to plumb in a washing machine for example. When painting a they manages to spray copious paint all over the floor, units all the windows and leave white footprints down a garden path. Even then they did not even cover the walls and the job had to be repeated twice. Even though the builders never finished and a remedial team came in for three days to correct their erors, the original team sued us for the full price of installation + over £2000!!! Wickes refused to help in any way with this saying it was not their problem. Our kitchen is still not complete and we never got any electrical certificates. In the end Wickes simply abandoned us. We still have the holes into the living room and our rafters have been irreparably weakened. I have about half a kitchen still in bits in my garage, if anyone wants it.
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And the building trade don't shop in Homebase - far too expensive, even just to pop in on the way to site to pick up something small - Screwfix have that market cornered, pretty much. So it's sitting in a grey area with a rapidly shrinking market and it needs to jump one way or the other - home furnishings like 'The Range' or better priced DIY like BandQ.
Presumably 'old style' DIY is still big in Australia - maybe their property market isn't as badly out of whack as ours - which is why Bunnings thought they could make a go of it here. Sadly not.
I feel a bit sad about it really. OH and I started out doing up our first house by shopping at the local Homebase. Now we have trade accounts with builders' merchants and the only time I've been into Homebase lately is to buy a houseplant in a fancy pot as a wedding gift.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
On a three week build, (could have been done in 9 days) it took nearly eight months because of Wickes ordering wrong parts four times, delivering other peoples kitchen panels, not backing up their promise to be with us "every step of the way" delaying and being late, and employing substandard contractors who drilled holes into our living room wrecked rafters, miswired, kept failing to turn up and could not even fit a unit together properly. I have never seen anyone try to put two screws into one hole, until then. It took them three days to plumb in a washing machine for example. When painting a they manages to spray copious paint all over the floor, units all the windows and leave white footprints down a garden path. Even then they did not even cover the walls and the job had to be repeated twice.
Even though the builders never finished and a remedial team came in for three days to correct their erors, the original team sued us for the full price of installation + over £2000!!! Wickes refused to help in any way with this saying it was not their problem.
Our kitchen is still not complete and we never got any electrical certificates. In the end Wickes simply abandoned us. We still have the holes into the living room and our rafters have been irreparably weakened. I have about half a kitchen still in bits in my garage, if anyone wants it.
Utterly shocking service.