Penge Homebase closed - now Bunnings warehouse

[gerispringer]

I agree Bunnings always seems busy when I’ve been there and they must have spent a fortune on the rebranding. I guess the new owners won’t want to rebrand it yet again so it will have to go. Shame.

[biscuitman1978]

According to the BBC, all Bunnings store will revert to the Homebase brand, including Penge:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44248409

[butters]

This is terrible news! I loved Bunnings (I thought the quality and price of their plants was far better than homebase). it always was pretty busy in there so this is a huge huge shame. heres hoping the new owners put something similar in there.

[JayB]

I agree it is bad news-I found the range of stock and the customer service at Bunnings to be considerably better than Homebase.
Contrary to what has been said on here, Homebase has a very bad imageindeed- for poor stock, high prices and far too few staff. It ranks as one of the bottom stores out of 100 ranked by Which and gets lambasted on all sorts of reveiw sites.Its poor reputation is frequently cited as a reason it is failing. Anyway let's hope the Bunnings staff are all kept on.

[stuart]

I thought Homebase was a prisoner of its past.

It was brilliant when it first opened with employees in their neat green aprons. It fitted the (then) positioning of its owner Sainsburys as a slightly superior DIY supermarket. Not the best prices but not Tesco-like either. And very neat in contrast with Marley DIY (in what is now ironically the Penge Sainsbury's shed).

This really opened up a market of people, particulary women, who felt uncomfortable going to a proper DIY shop (like our very own superb Sydenham DIY). It also led on logically to the linens to settees sub-departments.

The trouble was, and is, the growth first of B&Q that deliver a wider experience for less and later Toolstation & Screwfix that deliver much lower prices by cutting out the display bit and doing good online. Homebase were stuck in the same position as M&S is today. Cut prices and hence service and quality but because of their infrastructure still being undercut by the rest. The USP gone. Online a joke.

Bunnings was a brave attempt to get under B&Q and might have succeeded if the execution had not been so bungled in a falling market. Shifting branding/expectations is an enormous, tricky and risky task. You really can't do it in a foreign market with only your own local retail experience.

All too many of our great UK retailers have made exactlty the same error and having to retire very hurt from their overseas expeditions.

Stuart

[alywin]

So this must be a world record - Bunnings opened on March 7th and is set, according to a staff member, to close for good on June 14th. Bargains galore for sure but very sad for the workforce, the site and the moral of that end of Penge High Street.

Well, I went up there yesterday and bought several things I'd really needed - and hadn't been able to get anywhere else. Unfortunately, I'd taken that comment about June 14th as read, so hadn't been up there (it's awkward to get to from here if you're buying heavy/bulky stuff because of the railway being in the way) and it was only the other day that I checked the website and realised it was still open, so I thought I'd post here and correct that post.

[alywin]

That said,

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/new ... cid=ASUDHP

[alywin]

Bunnings closes tomorrow evening (21st) and reopens the next day back as a Homebase! Very strange. Presumably will go on selling the current stock for a bit, since they can't just wave a magic wand and make it vanish in 12 hours.

[The Clown]

I went there yesterday and failed to be able to buy the wasp powder I wanted.

I noticed that they were trying to sell off a Garden table and chair set for double the original sale price but claiming it was discounted.

....a signage company somewhere is doing well out of this one assumes!