Woolworths to exit Masters hardware venture

[sp0rk]

From Wikipedia:
Home Timber and Hardware (commonly known as "Home" or "Home Hardware") is Australia's third largest retail hardware chain. It is owned by Danks Holdings Ltd; it is a joint venture of Australia's Woolworths Ltd and Charlotte (USA) hardware chain Lowe's.[1] Its main competitors are Mitre 10, Bunnings Warehouse and increasingly Masters Home Improvement, which is also a joint venture between Woolworths and Lowe's.

Correct, but they're a small very over priced shop since they're a franchise type deal and the franchisee can charge more or less whatever they want

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Selling shitty yard equipment is one thing. Dropping the quality control ball where electrical cable is involved is quite another.


https://www.masters.com.au/diy-projects-ideas/support-help/infinity-and-olsent-cables-recall


http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/sites/ftw/About_us/News_and_events/Whats_new/Infinity_electrical_cable_safety_recall.page

One of the pit falls of bringing shite into the country the importer who brings in some dodgy goods from elsewhere is deemed to be the manufacturer (reason being the government has no jurisdiction over overseas suppliers) can't see why the government standards can't test the goods at importers expense.

 

[madpierre06]

Or trst at manufacturers expense, but then China wouldnt like that

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

One of the pit falls of bringing shite into the country the importer who brings in some dodgy goods from elsewhere is deemed to be the manufacturer (reason being the government has no jurisdiction over overseas suppliers) can't see why the government standards can't test the goods at importers expense.

Or trst at manufacturers expense, but then China wouldnt like that

Because the industry "self regulates"

 

[wynnum1]

One of the pit falls of bringing shite into the country the importer who brings in some dodgy goods from elsewhere is deemed to be the manufacturer (reason being the government has no jurisdiction over overseas suppliers) can't see why the government standards can't test the goods at importers expense.

One of the pit falls of bringing shite into the country the importer who brings in some dodgy goods from elsewhere is deemed to be the manufacturer (reason being the government has no jurisdiction over overseas suppliers) can't see why the government standards can't test the goods at importers expense.

The ones tested imported goods will be the quality item and what is imported crap bait and switch.

 

[Dave70]

One of the pit falls of bringing shite into the country the importer who brings in some dodgy goods from elsewhere is deemed to be the manufacturer (reason being the government has no jurisdiction over overseas suppliers) can't see why the government standards can't test the goods at importers expense.

You'd probably be well aware that much of China's manufacturing facility's are state of the art (I'm picking on them as they seem to be the modern day whipping boy equivalent of the Japanese' - Jap crap' - in the 70's). I had a chat with one of our customers who use to make a living importing building materials - carpets, tiles etc before every man and his dog got in on the act. He lays much of the quality control issues with Chinese made goods squarely at the feet of the clients commissioning the work.

Say for example you decide to flood the market with a new wave of mega blender that turns ordinary food into 'superfood'. You approach a manufacturer in China with your design, they nut out the details and then its on the the finer points. You could go with a heavy duty 1200 watt angler grinder style motor, high carbon stainless blades, chunky polyurethane coupling and so on.
But with the price point on these things being what it is, why bother chewing up your margin with quality componentry? Just work on volume, sell it for peanuts, give it a decent warranty and hope there's not to many comebacks.
Sound familiar?

Its not the Zhejiang provence electric blender, chopstick and sake manufacturing concern's fault you're a greedy corner cutting **** looking to make a fast dollar.

{edit - speeling}

 

[wynnum1]

Australia before the government made laws to close down manufacturing in Australia did make crap was told about a shoe manufacture who payed bonuses to improve output and over time increased quota to get bonus and the quality was so poor the shoes were unsaleable .interestingly the one who told me this recommended not worrying about the bonus and just make a couple of pairs good shoes take home and sell.
These were the days when you could drink at lunch time and the workers were high on glue anyway.

 

[Dave70]

Did British Leyland have a shoe division in Aus?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Absolutely true what you were told, there are both good and bad products to be had in China and a lot of the shite is because the shite was made for a client to his recommendations, or he asked the manufacturer to make the item cheaper, they will oblige but the Chinese will not be wanting to lose money so cheaper components are used.

As for every man and his dog getting in on the act, if you look on eBay and see how many sellers are Chinese now, I was asking a Chinese importer recently why there are so many Chinese getting on eBay he told me they have an app which tells them which items are prime performers, then they will get that item and cut the margin to the bone making it impossible to make any money on the said item from sellers outside China.

 

[TheWiggman]

You'd probably be well aware that much of China's manufacturing facility's are state of the art (I'm picking on them as they seem to be the modern day whipping boy equivalent of the Japanese' - Jap crap' - in the 70's). I had a chat with one of our customers who use to make a living importing building materials - carpets, tiles etc before every man and his dog got in on the act. He lays much of the quality control issues with Chinese made goods squarely at the feet of the clients commissioning the work.

Say for example you decide to flood the market with a new wave of mega blender that turns ordinary food into 'superfood'. You approach a manufacturer in China with your design, they nut out the details and then its on the the finer points. You could go with a heavy duty 1200 watt angler grinder style motor, high carbon stainless blades, chunky polyurethane coupling and so on.
But with the price point on these things being what it is, why bother chewing up your margin with quality componentry? Just work on volume, sell it for peanuts, give it a decent warranty and hope there's not to many comebacks.
Sound familiar?

Its not the Zhejiang provence electric blender, chopstick and sake manufacturing concern's fault you're a greedy corner cutting **** looking to make a fast dollar.

:icon_offtopic:
I worked with a Chinese bloke who had be in Australia for 10 years. He still struggled with English but was an engineer and generally hard worker. At the time we had bought a piece of equipment from a Australian manufacturing company with international recognition, and chose it over a US company. The Australian product was significantly cheaper but still a lot of money. I'm talking a decent bit of kit, well into 6 figures.
Installed, some support, and some problems.
A hydraulic ram gave up the ghost and required new seals. On the second occasion I got involved and assessed what was occurring (cylinders don't just poo themselves without a cause) and it was abundantly clear to me what the problem was. It was almost entirely due to poor manufacturing quality and there were a number of no-nos that I could see. In fact, I challenged whether the manufacturer had even engineered the design (and I use engineering in its correct sense, engineering is not manufacturing something). I requested the sister cylinder be opened and inspected and without going into it, the machine was taken out of service.
There were some Chinese characters inside the cylinder so I got my Chinese colleague on the case. Long story short, we chased the build back after much pushing and found the units were built in China. It was evident when challenged there was no engineering performed. We got new cylinders manufactured locally for 30% less than the imported rubbish. We then found out that the company paid 17% of the price they were selling it for. 615% markup.
After it all blew over I asked my Chinese friend how on earth something like this could happen. How could we get a cylinder that was of such poor quality, didn't have proper engineering done and was so phenomenally cheap to build? He basically said "In China, you can get anything made for price. Any price. We can make good things but people don't want that, they want cheap". I challenged that but he said "no, you make here for $200000, we can make it for $2000. They will find steel from a tip, will machine with old tools. It will work". On top of all this because there is no real need for warranty and the huge turnovers of goods if customers don't want their business, they go to another customer. Warranty? What are we going to do, sue them?

We're our own worst enemy ultimately. China makes money from selling things, and if we tell them what we want ($) them we get what we paid for. They don't see a problem with that.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

It isn't just engineering equipment, trainers are a good examples less than a couple of dollars to make and we pay a couple of hundred, I look at my New Balance and wonder if I have bought a copy (being in the game in the past) and I have had to glue the ends of the sole down a couple of times before finding success with liquid nails. Just have to put it down to Karma.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Mate of mine does work clothing, embroidering etc and was telling me that he gets shirts made in china for 10c per stitched seam. Works out about $1 per shirt

 

[pcmfisher]

I bought one of these a couple of months ago.

More power, torque, comfort, and features than the opposition and 10k cheaper.

 

[Blind Dog]

I bought one of these a couple of months ago.

More power, torque, comfort, and features than the opposition and 10k cheaper.

And 2 star safety rating is the reason its $10k cheaper

 

[stux]

Its not just that people want cheap. Its very hard to specify quality. If you don't specify every nut and detail, then it substituted. And even if you do, they are anyway.

Ask Matel about the lead paint... or some of the contractors supplying trains to the rail corps, who've had to setup local factories to re-engineer the trains built to their own specifications, so that they meet their own specifications

 

[Feldon]

Its not solely greedy Chinese companies' fault. Its greedy US, UK and Australian companies too. In the case of the Mattel toy recall, Mattel later admitted that it had cut corners on its QA process which should have detected the lead paint in its toys before they went to customers.

It's a stunning reversal. In August, after the company announced its recalls of several toys because they were made using lead paint, reporters grilled Mattel CEO Bob Eckert about how lead paint, which is banned for use on children's toys in the U.S., ended up on its "Sarge" toy cars. Surprisingly, he had answers. In a conference call on Aug. 14, he blamed it on a subcontractor who violated Mattel's policies and "utilized paint from a non-authorized third-party supplier."
That moment of candor and Eckert's heartfelt apology to parents in a video the company released on Mattel's website were high points in Mattel's otherwise punch-drunk performance in handling these recalls. By pointing out specifically where things broke down and then spelling out what he would do to fix it — testing every batch of toys before it leaves China, rather than relying on testing raw materials — the CEO reassured American consumers that he understood the problem and would back up his apology with action.

http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1664428,00.html

 

[Mardoo]

...and then he bent out of range of the camera to snort more coke off a hooker's boobs.

 

[pcmfisher]

And 2 star safety rating is the reason its $10k cheaper

Nah, that was the V80, pretty rudimentary.

The G10 has all the safety bells and whistles. They don't have a safety rating as yet. Why, I don't know, but safety wise they are not lacking.

Lotus calibrated chassis - whatever that is.
Anti-skid brakes (ABS)
Electronic brake force distribution (EBD)
Emergency brake assist (EBA)
Electronic stability control (ESC)
Roll movement intervention (RMI).
Driver and Passenger Air Bags
Tyre pressure monitoring.
Reversing Camera with park sensors.

I couldn't justify 40k on a van so it was a toss up between this brand new or a second hand hiace or iload with 100000km on the clock and some chicken shit after market third party warranty.

Hope I don't need parts though.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

All those gizmo's wont help if the vehicle is poorly designed and made.

NCAP results are what you want. If it folds up like a tissue box and gets a low rating in crash testing then its not a very safe vehicle

 

[wynnum1]

2 star safety rating what about all the air bag recall and know of jeep owner older car that was written off reason no airbags to fix.