Screwfix about to go belly up?

I hope not - they owe me nearly £200 in returns.

Last week I ordered a sink tap (Pegler Iconic), which arrived this week, and leaked like a very leaky thing when I installed it. Ordered a replacement (different Pegler), which arrived today, and was also faulty.

Paid by credit card?

Not a problem if so.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

For what little it's worth, my vote's for the former; although as a company they've titted me about something rotten over the most recent order (placed 02sep and still incomplete, as recounted at tedious length in an earlier posting today), the people I've talked to on the phone have been unfailingly motivated and polite, with one of them mentioning during the course of conversation that there's about 300 customer-call-takers in the call centre. Didn't to me have the air of an organisation about to go under; rather one where some self-proclaimed management genius has pushed through a Wonderful And Bold ReEngineering Programme, maybe having swallowed uncritically the promises of an Outsourcing Partner, leading the organisation temporarily up an unproductive garden path - possibly while a different management genius is busy broadening the product range. I think they'll be back on form in fulfilling orders within a few weeks, but their profit figures will look dire for a month or four, and that the difficulty of rebuilding their reputation with their customer base will affect sales for a bit longer than that.

And I suspect the management genius(es) responsible will be in new jobs with different organisations in a different retail sub-sector within a year, on improved salaries, with their CVs and references full of glowing tales of the dynamic change management programme they succesfully led at Sfx...

Stefek "Dilbert R Us" Z

Always.

I guess - never had to recover anything through my CC company. Still, I hope it doesn't come to that, I'm very fond of Screwfix despite poor performance over the past few weeks.

They have just moved home, and installed a new computer system, so I believe.

I think that this is unlikely.

If you take a look at the web site of their parent company, Kingfisher, in the interim results for the first half of 2004 (to end of July:

"SCREWFIX DIRECT grew its catalogue and online sales of tools and trade materials by 15.0% to £123.2 million. However, retail profit declined by £3.9 million to £6.1 million due to £3.6 million of pre-opening and transition costs associated with its new fulfilment centre at Stoke which started shipping at the end of June. This transition, which will result in a 40% capacity expansion, is now nearing completion with single site operation planned from October."

"Kingfisher plc is Europe?s leading home improvement retailer and the third largest in the world, with 579 stores in nine countries in Europe and Asia."

For the group:

- Retail sales up 9.6% to £3.9 billion (2003/04: £3.6 billion), up

- Retail profit(3) up 13.2% to £355.8 million (2003/04: £314.4 million), up 15.1% in constant currencies

- Adjusted pre-tax profit (4) up 18.4% to £345.9 million (2003/04: £292.2 million), up 20.7% in constant currencies

-Pre-tax profits up 27.1% to £346.3 million (2003/04: £272.5 million)

- Attributable post-tax profits up 29.9% to £237.3 million (2003/04: £182.6 million)

-Adjusted basic earnings per share (4) up 15.7% to 10.3p (2003/04:

- Basic earnings per share up 27.2% to 10.3p (2003/04: 8.1p)

- Interim dividend up 10.0% to 3.85p (2003/04: 3.5p)

- Total net debt reduced to £622.2 million (£843.8 million at 31 January 2004)

==========

UK and Ireland (58.2% of Group Sales)

- Total sales up 6.3% (3.1% LFL), retail profit up 10.2%.

- B&Q total sales up 5.9% (2.5% LFL), retail profit up 12.9% to £207.8 million. Strong growth in kitchens, bathrooms, electricals and joinery offset weaker seasonal ranges.

- 16 more B&Q mini-Warehouse conversions, 44 now trading.

- Screwfix Direct sales up 15.0%, retail profit down £3.9 million to £6.1 million after pre-opening and transition costs of new fulfilment capacity. =====

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

they also told me, a couple of months ago, that they had replaced the stock picking and order tracking system from the antiquated on they inherited from the old screwfix, to a new bespoke system.

I think it's unlikely, but I hope they don't go titsup.com

RT

Wouldn't have thought so. AFAIK Kingfisher own them and if they were thinking of getting rid of anything to pay for more B&Q Warehouses it would be Comet first.

Mind you, my postman would be happy to hear the latter. The number of their catalogues we get with slightly differing addresses is unreal.

They already did that.

Comet was a wholly owned subsidiary of Kesa Electricals and Kingfisher demerged that in 2003.

Kingfisher is now the third largest home improvement business worldwide, after Home Depot and Lowes.

Of course, if they sell B&Q to Home Depot (which would require no colour change, little rebranding and be up and running in 10 minutes), they would be No. 1.

- B&Q layout identical

- "You can do it. We can Help" (TM) {You can do it when you B&Q it}

- Everything the same shade of orange

- Old duffers in aprons at the door.

- Buckets to use instead of baskets

- Signage identical

- Tool Corrall

The only thing HD doesn't usually have is a cafeteria for the punters in the store - there's usually a roach coach outside.

However they do have self service checkouts which do the entire job including taking your money.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

There are any number of problems that could occur with a computer dependent firm like that:

Sloppy work ethics leading to massive debts.

Poor management interaction or one of them trying to wrest control.

DDOSs, viral attacks, tech problems and/or upgrades.

Criminal insiders.

If they can clear the corruption they can get a loan to refloat if needed. Heads will roll though. If they don't, that will be the end of it.

They have a huge warehouse down the hill from me. I shall ask about it at work tomorrow.

Why do you imagine that there is anything more sinister than a disconnect while they move distribution from one part of the country to another?

Since they are probably closing the Yeovil facility - this was announced after the local authority refused permission to extend the current facility or build a new one - one can imagine that the workforce are hardly motivated. Especially if they haven't been offered generous severance payments.

Screwfix has a good turnover and respectable profit for the type of industry, but the move has dented their short term profits by some way.

If you're in Stoke, it's the new one. If it's Yeovil, then it's probably about to close.

I don't think that they would have made the huge investment in a move for logistical reasons if they were going to offer an inferior delivery service afterwards.

The only evidence of problems is that the delivery situation has worsened for the moment. Previously, they did have a good delivery record, although people took it that the free delivery service was guaranteed next day rather than typically next day. This is to be expected during a transition like this. Moving a distribution business of over 10,000 line items is not trivial.

The thing that they have done poorly, is not to give a good explanation on their web site or in the catalogue that this is taking place and a likely timescale to resolve it.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

I placed an order Monday and just phoned to check on progress (Thurs AM).

Spoke to a young guy by the name of "Fred" - I did double check the name, his accent wasn't UK - have they moved the call centre to India?

My order is apparently "stuck in the system", their order tracking system is working as Fred could check my address details and the status of the order but the picking and warehouse control system is most definately not working.

I asked how long for my delivery not sure was the answer. I asked two days or three days, he suggested Monday. I almost cancelled the order but curiosity got the better of me!

Sounds like they have got themselves in a right mess.

Phil

It's changed from a few days ago.

Digging around in my cache I found the following:

"Deliveries Unfortunately we are unable to fulfil any further orders for Standard next day, Saturday and pre 10/12 deliveries. Any orders placed today will now be delivered on Friday 24th September. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause."

So they have gone from taking orders (with a delay in despatch) to not being able to take orders at all.

If they were moving offices, surely they'd get one up and running before closing the other?

Something is afoot..

sPoNiX

In article , Andy Hall writes

When the B&Q Warehouse concept was introduced, the first few were called "B&Q Depot" (with the above Home Depot similarities) but Home Depot were not impressed and made them change it, presumably in case of future expansion to the UK.

Not that simple.

What may happen is that teh new systems will need to have the old data rolled onto them. Its quite a job really. Especially if its a new software system they are using.

In the U.S., HD is know as "the Borg" (from Star Trek) because of their predatory nature.

It would not surprise me at all if B&Q were to be "assumed by the Borg" at some point.

Having said that, the concept has been copied by wannabees all over Europe.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

I wouldn't guantee it. I recently only got a credit card refund from Lloyds TSB after a company went bankrupt by taking LTSB to the Financial Ombudsman. Whilst the law states that you are covered if purchased by credit card, the card company can still stick 2 fingers up.

Yes, but as part of the development of the new system, processes to amalgamate the old data will be incorporated. It wouldn't be a case of a thousand monkeys copying all the data from one screen to another - it would programmatically be transferred from the old database and really shoudn't take very long. With the correct planning and implementation there should really be no excuse for such an interruption of service. There has oviously been some major shortcomings in the changeover planning.