Toolstation taken over

Most of the sloppy press coverage of this credits Mark Goddard-Watts as the founder of Screwfix, although he'd have to have found the Fountain of Youth to be the same guy whose fizzog used to appear in Screwfix catalogues.

Interesting article from the Indy in 1999 about pre-takeover Screwfix's modus operandi:

Yes.. the next one will be called startupforsale.co.uk.

How things changed for Screwfix:

"We're not interested in cutting costs to the point where we see what we can get away with," he says."

Toolstation in Edinburgh is just an all round more pleasant experinece than Screwfux .

Cheers Adam

trouble is all the tools that I've bought from them are not good quality. OK for a one off job, just, but not for keeping.

Screwfix turned into a shower of wankers (and employed wankers) after the appointment of so-called 'professional' managers. There was an item they had, that I wanted and was more than willing to pay the shipping costs to Ireland. The customer-relations mouthpiece informed me that Parcelforce/RM didn't deliver to Ireland, and since that's who their contract was with, it was out of the question. I informed her she was talking a right crock of s*it and that very week several parcels had come through PF/RM via Irish PO. Since then, I've ordered thousands of pounds worth of materials from other UK suppliers - business Screwfux could have had. I wonder how many others that stupid woman pissed off. Not that the loss of my business would have made any difference to them, but plenty of other companies realised that the doorstep export market was worthwhile.

Apparently Goddard-Watts is still in charge but no longer the owner. So the board composition is different with more TS involvement. He said that there had been little interference in day to day running by TP and he did not anticipate much change it that situation. The board at TP are very aware of the harm that the new ownership of Screwfix have caused and don't want to do the same to TS.

Sadly of the 5 items I wanted today, 4 are only sold by SF and I had the usual wait there but they did have everything in stock this time!

Bob

"Management studies history so as not to repeat mistakes". That's got to be a first, but if it's true then it is quite encouraging :)