Screwfix in Reading

This is the same as the Luton one when it opened. Don't get excited about the snacks -- it was a token for a burger van parked outside, but the T-shirts were good quality thick cotton, with Screwfix logo embroidered on.

Well you certainly can't miss it: they've got a barrage ballon hovering over the place (perhaps they're expecting an air raid by Toolstation? :-))

As retail therapy it's perhaps a little sad* but the discount off the stuff I bought almost paid for refuelling the van ;-)

Not particularly taken by the Tshirts, mind, and I declined the baseball cap which was too cheap and naff even for me :-).

• but then I think retail therapy _is_ sad.

I'm guessing industrial estate. I think a pub would be preferable ;)

P.

Worse than that. All routes to it require the use of an armoured personnel carrier.

It's not that bad round there. It's almost next to Waitrose! You have to go much further into town to get the real Oxford Road effect.

Christian.

After visting Screwfix on Friday I was in the car park of another shop when a Gentleman of the Streets approach me asking if I could 'help him out'. I gathered that he meant financially, though the bottle of cider in his hand led me to infer that money was a means to a specific end. (For the record I declined to assist.)

And the mean streets I was on?

Tesco's.

Good Q. FWIW, I've no inside info, but observing inside B&Q stores & noting the odd footnote or two in one of the rags I read, for several years it's been only too obvious that stocking/rebranding changes are afoot at B&Q (owner of screwfix). It used to be that you could buy a specialised tool (or bits & pieces) at B&Q to tackle a serious job, plus all the add-on gubbins needed to deal with the non-standard application. More & more it only stocks the basic tool or component.

B&Q was marked by it being obvious that stocking decisions were made by people who knew what was required to do a job. In contrast it was & still is only too obvuous that staff in Homebase et al haven't a clue with that regard. By way of example, I recall seeing a bundle of 6ft angle plaster bead knocked down for next to nothing in H-B. Anyone who has ever used angle bead knows that almost everytime you need lengths well over 2m long. Of course H-B never stocked usable lengths.

B&Q is beginning to remind me of my model train days: I'd be given a spanking new model with manufacturer's instructions which mentioned a nice extra you could obtain from your model shop. Hopes raised I'd dash downtown, only to find no-one stocked the extra & worse no-one wanted to order it.

It rather looks as if we are witnessing B&Q building a new trade supply chain. There's 12 screwfix trade counters open (13 with Derrby):viz: Aintree; Birmingham; Bristol; Enfield; Gloucester; Harlow; Kettering; London; Luton; Reading; Stockport; Yeovil. They appear to being opened @ around 1/month.

Interesting branch distribution.. Quite a lot of potential customers north of Thames & in Midlands must be within an hour or so drive of one of these outlets. Are these the areas where Screwfix get the most business? Or where it finds it hardest to make delivery? or where it has most problems obtaining space for B&Q stores?

Maybe B&Q have found trade customers don't particularly like mixing with their clientele?

Maybe B&Q are aiming to increase the no of women customers. The stores certainly seem to be giving more attention to Homebase type stuff rather than basic hardware. For instance one branch I use now has a large display of bathroom suites set out as for real. In days past it stacked it all up in racks. .Apparently another aspect of DIY-type shopping is that men tend to to go in for a specific item & leave with it (or with nothing if its out of stock) whilst women tend to go in & are likely to impulse buy..

Maybe if B&Q can oust the basic stuff it can find more room for ladylike displays?

Everyone should have something to aim for in life.

Quite surprised to see my local Tesco now sells Buckfast, and how much it costs. Must be bloddy potent to make it worth while buying it.

Owain

Yes, but then you have to go all round the houses to avoid it.....

Not just space for B&Q stores, but cheaper to have an anonymous unit in an industrial estate than pay for space on a retail park subsidising the large shared carpark clogged by chavs visiting Pizza King or Burger Land, and much less contentious getting planning permish.

Owain

simply the location that puts it withina suitable distance o the largest portion of the population. ie the same reason that if you were setting up a national distribution centre it would probably be in MK or thereabouts,

The Oxford Road is also very slow and congested, it is almost always better to use the Portman Road or Tilehurst Road to bypass it.

Christian.

And (apropos nothing much, but at least getting back geographically closer to the new Screwfix) in Wickes today there was a guy wandering round the shop in his vest[1]. Not that Wickes has a dress code, exactly, but even by the sartorial standards of their usual clientele he did rather stand out. I was surprised to later see him getting into a rather distinctive vehicle[2] I'd noticed in the car park.