Screwfix

[chris French]

In message , Grunff writes

Well Screwfix can now certainly confirm that......

[Dave Liquorice]

As they have found out...

As for quality of staff the pickers need to be at least literate, have common sense and some knowledge of the products stocked. So when the picking form says "XY346501 Washer, Flat" from bin 2Z56 and 2Z56 only contains 13A plugs labeled XY346501 they raise a query...

[Huge]

Ha.

I once ordered some knee-pads and got gutter endcaps.

Dead uncomfortable they were, too.

[Peter Crosland]

That staement shows just how little you know about the way appeals are dealt with. In any case Screwfix withdrew the application so it was never decided by the local authority.

[G&M]

Agreed. Although twice the number of people, the Jaguar plant closure will have a massive negative effect on the local economy so I cannot believe the Screwfix closure won't. One wonders what the local council thought it was playing at by not allowing an expansion. Successful businesses need to expand and if an area gets known for not allowing this, new businesses won't move there in the first place.

[G&M]

Not even distant. Directors of a UK (or US) public company have a legal obligation to (a) and (b) but (c) isn't a requirement at all. Of course German and French law is quite the opposite which is why so many of their companies lose so much money and have to be bailed out by taxpayer's money.

[Capitol]

CPC seem to have occasional difficulties with this concept!

Regards Capitol

[Capitol]

Loose jobs?No

Gordon is doing quite well, the impact of rocketing minimum wage increases, more holidays, more taxes and more regulations, is exporting low wage jobs at a rate that would have petrified the Conservatives. It is now cheaper for Ford to build Jaguars in the US than in Coventry and call centres providing local employment are becoming an endangered species in Scotland and Wales! There are no new employers coming forward to reverse the process. What are the true unemployment figures today, 4M? ( counting recognised unemployed, job seekers, training courses, over 50's etc)

What is also currently being overlooked is that the IR have managed to pull forward taxation which would normally be received in Jan 05 by about 6 months IIEC, so the current PSBR figures do not compare with previous years on a month by month basis. I expect the borrowing requirements to rocket in Feb/Mar 05.

IMO Screwfix have messed it up, British management is infamous for it's ability to underestimate real problems and then fail to solve them, so why should Kingfisher be any different. Mothercare did it with a new warehouse, a couple of years ago. B & Q are IME significantly increasing their selling prices for a lot of items, presumably to increase profits where there is little competition. If you look at their share price and P/E ratio, there is IMO more chance of it falling than rising unless HD takes it over. The yield is poor with 3% inflation around the corner. IMO HD would do better to buy Wickes/Focus on a value for money basis, with good growth prospects.

Regards Capitol

[Bob Eager]

Indeed - but they are quite good at fixing it!

I finally asked for a catalogue this week.

One arrived on Thursday. One arrived on Friday.

Oh well.

[Andy Hall]

Yes but they'd have to change the signs. At least B&Q is a borg-ready company.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Pete C]

Hmmm, McDonalds, Microsoft and Walmart are properly run businesses that are leaders in their fields, that doesn't say a lot for their products.

Competition on price alone is good up to a point, but there must come a point where the effect becomes negative.

cheers, Pete.

[Andy Hall]

Note that I didn't mention anything about quality.

In the (financial) context that I was using, the normal definition of leading is by sales revenue, or perhaps on closer look, profitability.

On this definition, all of the companies that you mention are leaders or close to being so in their fields.

If you apply the quality definition to the same companies, they would all come quite low on the scale. I certainly wouldn't go into any store run by Walmart or its subsidiaries, and have as little to do with the others as possible.

I couldn't agree more. You're preaching to the choir.

John Ruskin, the philosopher (1819-1900) had words of wisdom on this.

"There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey. "

'It is unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money ... that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the things it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot... it cannot be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for the something better!"

.andy

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[:::Jerry::::]

I wonder if M Thatcher ever read his wise words ?....

[Tony Bryer]

You forget, perhaps, that business rates don't go to the local council but into a central pot which is then distributed out using some arcane formula. So SSDC get 1/723 (or whatever) of what Screwfix pay in rates regardless of where they are located. Of course there is the issue of votes as well, but that could work more than one way.

[Andy Hall]

Probably. I think everybody should when buying something.

.andy

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[Andrew Gabriel]

In my experience, they aren't very good at fixing it. I've had the same wrong goods delivered again as replacements, and it's sometimes something they don't even stock, so I think their good-inwards inspections leave a little to be desired. Very frequently, I only get credited for one returned product when several were returned. Their notion of my account status drifts away from reality over a year or so, and they are unable to explain why. They have just told me this should be fixed by a new accounting system they're introducing. If there is some problem with your account, no one tells you when you order or phones you back -- they just don't process the order and it's up to you to track down why when it doesn't turn up. The goods are often not well enough wrapped -- I think we got 4 orders in a row a couple of months back, every one with the box burst open and missing some parts. One of the best ones we had was someone ordered a bulk pack of D cells and some of the 30W tubular filament lamps. The box arrived with the powdered glass leaking out of all the corners -- yes they were all just loose inside That last one was a few years ago admittedly, but it's become legendary in the department -- if someone wants something fragile from CPC, someone else in the department will chirp up with "get them to chuck in half a dozen SLA batteries too" ;-)

Having said all that, I do like CPC's products, and I particularly like their weekly leaflets, which do cause me to buy quite a lot of things I otherwise wouldn't. In spite of the comments above, a lot of the orders go through without any problem and the staff are always very pleasent and seem to try hard to fix problems.

I also use Farnell and RS, both of whom seem very good, but I don't place enough orders with either to have a meaningful sample size for comparison.

[Peter Crosland]

See other posts but Screwfix withdrew the application. The stumbling block was that they wanted to build in open countryside well outside the development limits. Those limits were not set by the local council but effectively by central government. It is a common misconception that local planning authorities have carte blanche when in fact their powers are constrained by all sorts of Whitehall imposed red tape. The council did want Screwfix to expand in Yeovil but not into that particular place. However, my own theory is that Screwfix wanted to have a distribution centre much closer to the centre of the country and with good motorway access rather than be far from both. The application in Yeovil was probably a PR exercise to allow them to blame the council for the redundancies.

[Andy Hall]

It appears that there were two applications and one was next to an existing industrial estate according to the map.

A pretty expensive PR exercise. Two sets of plans and applications? Drawing attention to what is going on?

Why bother?

If the game plan was to move to a central location, it would have been much easier to just plan and do it. The announcement of the closure of the Yeovil facility would have made the local paper for one week, perhaps two, and probably not much more coverage than that and they'd still have to pay the redundancy money

.andy

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[IMM]

That could be the case. I was reading that Liverpool FC have applied to build a stadium on a listed Victorian park next to their existing old ground. Apparently the local council gave them permission, but the project has to go to Whitehall for approval being sensitive. Some journos think they may know they haven't a chance of getting it as every tree hugger for 200 miles around would descend on the park. Also the Anfield area is densely populated so taking valuable park space is also sensitive. But the club have to appease their fans and try and blame the government if and when it fails. Sports fans are sensitive to history and tradition, hence the Millennium stadium being built on an existing, modern 25 year old stadium that could have been kept and build the Millennium elsewhere, having two for the price of one.

[Grunff]

ROFL... I love it when planners come up with this kind of thing. Superb!