When I took back the lawn mower on Boxing Day, the queue at Bunnings' returns and refunds counter was longer than at all the cash registers combined. And therein lies a number of tales.
It reminded me of a conversation with a prominent Australian - indeed, a former Australian of the Year - who admitted to loving going to Bunnings. (And that is reason enough to leave the sorry individual anonymous, to protect an otherwise fine reputation.)
"But," said former A of the Y, "it's all crap. How much stuff have you bought at Bunnings and it breaks after you use it a couple of times? It's rubbish, I know it's rubbish, but I can't help buying it."
At this point the serious BusinessDay reader will see evidence of admirable retail expertise on Bunnings' part, but we haven't reached the serious part of the story yet.
Instead, ask yourself what's the worst bit of rubbish you've bought at Bunnings? Which cardboard box with a hand-written sign near the checkouts tempted you to buy the most useless item that lingers in a shed or hall cupboard? Or which considered purchase at a two-for-one bargain price turned out to have all the staying power of Mark Latham?
For me, it's not the Boxing Day lawn mower - even though it failed to proceed at all. Purchased Boxing Day morning, returned Boxing Day afternoon without a single blade of grass being harmed. The old mower died on Christmas Eve, there's a new four-and-a-half horsepower four-stroke Rover for $196 at Bunnings (traded goods deflation is not dead), not much more than the last service and repair job on the deceased. The replacement for the failed Rover works fine - or at least has worked fine once. For some inexplicable reason, I am quietly confident that it will work fine again.
For me, it's not even the six outdoor chairs with sturdy painted aluminium frames and some sort of nuclear war-resistant mesh fabric. Too bad about the two painted cheap steel rods at the back that proceeded to rust when exposed to sea air like cheap steel rods exposed to sea air. Heck, they were nearly giving the things away. Disposable furniture.
For me, it's the stainless steel wire swimming pool brush with which to fight the Battle of the Black Spot. (Swimming pool owners with black spot will understand.) The Bunnings version costs a few cents under $25, which is about $500 too much. Vigorously attack black spot with the Bunnings brush and it wildly sheds individual stainless steel wires which then assume the persona of stainless steel needles - needles all over the bottom of the pool and then in various other parts of pool equipment after your vacuum. Not nice.
What makes it really crap though is that a stainless steel wire brush with no desire to imitate an emergency department sharps bin can be purchased from my local pool shop for $25 - just a few cents more than the Bunnings item.
Of course not everything in Bunnings is rubbish - the bloke who helped me purchase and then return the mower was very helpful and we have numerous Bunnings leads and powerboards that continue to function. My wife enjoys Bunnings as much as I dislike it, but she also likes gardening. 'Nuff said.
For me, Bunnings is a giant $2 shop. And it's the $2 shops and their variants that are winning the retail war in more difficult times, as colleague Carolyn Cummins reports here.
The business question (finally getting to the serious part of the story), is how much all the $2 shops are worth compared with what buyers paid at the top of the market.
Wesfarmers (alias Bunnings) has been getting most of the attention because of the cost and size of its Coles purchase, the amount of debt involved when debt has become such a poisonous animal and the amount of further investment required to fix Coles - which brings up the debt question again.
But there's a further key reason for Wesfarmers' giant $2 shop foray occupying centre stage: Wesfarmers is a public company. So are Woolworths, David Jones, Harvey Norman, Fantastic Furniture and JB Hi-Fi and all receive close media attention.
Yet some of the more interesting rumours around the retail trade concern private companies which are, by their nature, much more private. For all the concern about the performance of public retailers in the year ahead, the speculation is that many of the smaller, private outfits are considerably less healthy but just don't make it onto the radar.
And then there are the private equiteers - most obviously the TPG-led Myer gang and the Ironbridge-led Super A-Mart.
In the year to the end of July, Myer reported a $95 million net profit on sales that increased by 1% to $3.32 billion. That's not a flash margin for a department store and that was in a good year for retailers.
The private equiteers have made whatever quick and easy profits were to be made in buying Myer. Now it's the hard slog of running and trying to expand shops in a slower market.
Ironbridge's $500 million management buyout in May 2006 left Super A-Mart founder John Van Lieshout with ownership of all the Super A-Mart sites, long leases and the aforementioned half billion. Nice work, Mr Van Lieshout.
There was a story this time last year that Super A-mart was being prepared for $1 billion float or trade sale, but things seem to have gone very quiet on that front. Put up your hands anyone who wants to buy a geared retailer from a bunch of private equiteers?
The phrase 'missed the boat' comes to mind.
Like TPG at Myer, Ironbridge's exit strategy has retreated into the economic distance, leaving it to run a furniture retailer with that dirty word 'debt' and prospects of softer trading conditions.
Bunnings doesn't have the only wire brushes that can turn into needles.
WES Price at posting:
$16.43 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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