Toolsatan have opened trade counters inside Wickes stores in Bermondsy, Barking, Taunton & Nuneaton.
I can't quite see the logic of this?
Wickes will still sell plaster, cement, timber etc but nobody is going to buy screws, silicone, tools, plumbing bits, electrical stuff at Wickes prices when they can buy at Toolsatan prices - are they?
I'd find it very handy as we don't have a Toolsatan in medway.
Spoke to a couple of the girls in my local Wickes today - they hadn't heard anything about it.
Does make some horrible sense.
Wickes do bulky builder stuff and kitchens, with TS doing all the other stuff which of course will not be on site but avaialble within
24 hours if you call back.
I find Toolsatan very good, almost always have what i want in stock. Much better than SF.
Yebbut what's in it for Wickes, given that everything that Toolstation sell (give or take) is also stocked by Wickes, at a much higher price?
They are same company that address different section of the customer base. putting them under the same roof will increase footfall into combined store and could well increase sales and reduce overheads.
Wickes have bought Toolstation.
That sounds like a quote from a marketing brochure.
Colin Bignell
Not quite - Travis Perkins bought Wickes in 2005, and have also bought Toolstation (quite a while ago they got hold of a chunk of it, and picked up the rest a couple of years back).
Darren
No. Both are owned by Travis Perkins, along with a good few other know names in the plumbing/building supplies line:
January 2012.
think whats in it for Travis Perkins you are not usually dim when it comes to business and making money
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they are both owned by Travis Perkins.
We know that!
But, if Wickes AND Toolsatan are both selling stuff at a profit to their customers, where is the logic in opening a Toolsatan in a Wickes?
Wickes will lose their 450% mark up on items and Toolsatan will earn their 150% instead.
You don't have to pay the rent, rates, heat and light bills on a shed for Toolstation and I wouldn't be surprised if you could reduce overall staff numbers as well. There seem to be three or four staff and a manager in a stand alone Toolstation you probably only need two for a Wickes in store Toolstation, the Wickes already has a manager.
I wonder if the Wickes in store ToolStation will have much in stock compared with a standalone one. If so where are they going to keep it?
You'll also get the people who drift in from Homebase etc who see the pack of 10 screws for 2 quid and think "excellent, that's half the price of Homebase".
People who know will be ordering the box they can't see of 200 screws for 2 quid from the toolstation counter. A lot of people won't buy if they can't see the product. A counter service doesn't help people who want "a screw about this long with one of those cross things on the top not a line" (pretty much what I heard a few weeks ago in B&Q). That person will hunt along the shelfs looking for the plastic tub with something that looks like the thing they have an image of in their head.
Both sets of users are happy, Travis perkins wins. Some people will move to the toolstation knocking the Wickes profit line but a) it's toolstation not screwfix etc and b) I bet that's outweighed by the savings you mention (one store not two).
That'll be key - if they don't it'll fail. Also, the opening hours don't quite align. Longer hours on Sundays for example - Wickes aren't allowed to for sunday trading law, toolstation counter can. Will they carry that on?
I now have visions of between customers the person behind the toolstation counter will be opening boxes of screws and packing them into overpriced small plastic bags before taking out to put on the wickes shelves :-)
Darren
In the space Wickes formerly used for all the consumables?
Surely they won't both be selling identical ranges?
Might see Screwfix opening in B&Q then.
Same meat: different gravy!
Toolstation branches within Wickes branches will quickly become unusable by professionals as they become clogged with people getting them to drag out item after item and saying "Oh-ah, actually I meant the other-other one".
That's already happened to some extent at my local Screwfix, whilst the local (standalone) Toolstation hasn't yet become swamped with "Argos" types.
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