If that was the idea, then it would indeed have been a pretty...

If that was the idea, then it would indeed have been a pretty stupid one. The hurdles are much higher for someone entering a market from a standing start to an incumbent.

That idea aside though; looking at the numbers, Bunnings as the largest player having at the time only around 20% of a $40bn the market - surely on those numbers alone, there must be room for a second big player right?

If you can't dare to enter a market when the biggest player has only 20% market share then when can you?

This seemed to make even more sense given Woolies' experience in logistics, supply chain management in the food and booze business, it seemed to be like a good idea. All it needed was some knowledge of the hardware business - which it brought in from Lowes (albeit from the U.S).

Turns out Lowes may not have brought much to the table at all because at some point they admitted they had the wrong stocked the products that were not hitting the mark, and there now seems to have been a lot of compromises made with store locations which is hard to come back from once locked in.