RANGE REVIEW: HARDWARE


THE DEBATE: TO PACK OR NOT TO PACK?


Hardware may be the bread and butter of your average home improvement retailer but have you given any thought as to whether you could improve your margin by packing your own items or get more support expanding your range by buying in pre-packed lines? We ask two independent retailers for their opinion.


“THE PRODUCTS WOULDN’T MAKE IT ONTO THE SHELVES IN TIME”


Waite’s store manager Michael Tompkins explains why buying in pre-packed hardware makes sense for the cash & carry retail business, based in Conisbrough, Doncaster. “We are so busy as a business that we choose to buy


in pre-packed hardware. It’s handy for the customers who shop with us. We serve every man and his dog here – from your average DIYer, to professionals, such as electricians and plumbers. We offer a lot of different products, including pet food,


bird care and also have a big garden centre. Buying our hardware range in, as we do, means we can offer a lot more. We do the majority with Centurion but also import our own.


When I first started here six years ago, our Centurion range was only one metre and now it’s up to 40! We’ve been able to really expand our hardware offer and turnover in that category has gone up significantly. We do about £2,500 a week just on Centurion products, which is a lot. Working closely with someone like Centurion, who is very local – just three or four miles away – takes a lot of the hard work out of it for us. We have expanded with different lines and merchandising stands and can now offer so much more. Our rep comes in once a week, we talk through what we need, and it’s here two days later. They come and offer us different things We wouldn’t have done it if we were packing it ourselves – we couldn’t have done it. We have the facility here if we wanted to but you wouldn’t believe how busy we are. The products just wouldn’t make it onto the shelves in time to keep up with demand. People may say it’s more expensive but we’re really happy with the margin we get. It’s well above our margin on other lines we do. We earn nothing on food and pet food but recoup a little bit of that on our kitchenware, DIY and tools ranges.”


18 DIY WEEK 10 NOVEMBER 2017


“WE HAVE A GREAT BREADTH OF RANGE TO FIT OUR SPACE”


Dicksons Home Hardware co-owner Phil Dickson says the family-run business in Wadebridge, Cornwall has been packing its own hardware products for decades and is a firm believer that the benefits outweigh the time needed.


“My dad started doing it back in the 60s. He realised that if you bought in bulk and packed it at quiet times you can make a bit more of a margin on it. The shop isn’t busy bang on 9am, so that’s when you can put people to work packing if they aren’t busy doing other things. What we find is that a lot of the pre-packed hardware is too big, so


we are able to pack to the space that we’ve got. Some people say ‘our pre packs are so cheap, you don’t need to pack them yourself’ but I’ve looked into it and they might be offering me brass panel pins at 48p, when we are buying them for 14p and packing them ourselves when the guys aren’t doing anything – so we’re really saving. Another example is picture wire, which we are offered at £1.09 but we can get for 55p. All these costs mount up. Many hardware retailers, like us, don’t have a lot of space to play with. We have a fantastic range of screws but it’s about finding the space for them. With pre-packed we can’t get the range we want in the space we’ve got. Packing our own allows us to have a greater breadth of range and fit it to our space. We’ve got a great wall at the back of the shop with it all on – it’s like milk in the supermarket – it brings customers right through the shop. They might only spend 50p on a pack of screws but it gets them through the door and keeps us front of mind.


I think the only downside is that you need someone who knows what they are doing to go round and get everything out for the staff to pack. I will run round and look on the shelves for what we need, get the loose hardware out and leave it for the guys to do a bit of packing if they have a quiet period. We’re not very computerised, so a lot is done by eye. You do need to have someone on the ball and that could put people


off because it can be a bit time consuming. We have our header cards printed with Home Hardware. We print 12,000 a go and that does us for about 18 months. We are getting through quite a lot. It’s amazing when you look at the numbers.”


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