Pollyana

[QUOTE=Megalania]Being kind: put your glasses on and engage your mind before your mouth:


I have my glasses on, owing to the flaming awful dryness of this country I am now blind as a bat without them.

My mind is as shrivelled up as my skin cos I am so lonely that I can no longer remember how to engage my brain.

And anyway its getting to the point where its not worth even trying to engage my mind before opening my mouth, cos I just get slated whatever.

Megalania

Well, that made your situation blindingly clear, didn't it?

Sounds like you'll just have to live in a terrarium and converse with the pot plants.

More seriously, some minds go before the body - perhaps yours are level pegging.

bal56

I must admit I tend to agree with wombat (and I never thought I'd say that). Counter staff are loads more friendly and helpful in Oz - back home every other teenage sales assistant seemed to have a chip on his/herr shoulder.
One supermarket gripe however is that often I'm charged the regular price for special offer items - the computers haven't been properly updated. Check those receipts or eyeball the till before you leave.
As for Bunnings, we'ver returned a few things which have been faulty and have always received good customer service.

Centurion

As for getting things in different stores, there has been in the UK for years a lament for the loss of the individual shops and the rise of the superstore. So whilst it may seem a pain in the arse to go to various places to get things rather than under one roof, surely this does foster competition, a greater variety of goods generally available and a lack of high streets looking exactly the same with exactly the same stores on.

The UK has become in my mind a grey and bland place to shop with very few individual places and instead they build another Next, M&S, Sainsburys, B&Q etc. The media has supported this with accusations of each town center looking like the next.

I think there is probably arugements for both sides but since its difficult to have your cake and eat it I would rather settle for a bit more inconvenience for the sake of variety. Just a thought.

arkon

Well done, you got it in one.

arkon

Neither of my 2 Bunnings sell sand, Port Mcq & Taree. They do sell ready mix but that’s a well expensive way to do it. I've got my sand in the end at a sand merchant although he still never had any sandblaster sand!

Give me one shop that sells all the relevant stuff for a particular subject any day, especially as out here the distances are much bigger. For example I had to drive 30 minutes from Bunnings to get my sand.

As for sales staff being friendlier I would agree wholeheartedly until that is you need to take something back. I've found out here that before you part with any money they are really nice and all over you like bees round a honey pot. But heaven help you if you need to take it back.

Also in 30 years in the UK I can honestly say that I was never short changed or never noticed it at least. Here I have been short changed on many occasions and so has both my parents, wife and aunt and uncle. In 2 cases it was very obviously intentional. (keeping a fiver back behind the counter and waiting to see if I noticed)

jad n rich

The problem with OZ is the total lack of competition, 2 big players own most of the food stores even tho they have several names. Similar story almost all big shops here, and as far as I have seen, which is most states, all the same shops in every city too. Similar with airfares etc Smaller population
doesnt help with competition either, take new zealand as an example of expensive :scared: There are little one man shops but prices are held pretty firm by the big guys who buy out any serious threat. Food items here are ridiculous, each week I can count anywhere between 5 and 10 items that have gone up significantly. The latest attack is on dog food, I mean really how can a tin of Pal go from $1.15 to $1.45, partner eats those cream cracker biscuits with vegemite, (yuk) the vegemite has gone from just over $4 to almost $6 in a year, the cc biscuits are almost $2 a pack up from $1.20. Seems minor, add those type of rises up when they happen every week.

Megalania

I presume you have come from the UK, one of the most densely populated regions of the world to Port Macquarie / Taree - a dramatically lower population density. From a plethora of goods and services on your doorstep to a paucity. Get your mind around it - it almost certainly means that your work prospects in the immediate region are similarly affected.

Report the next short changer to management, please.

arkon

It shouldn't matter if I came from new deli. It doesn't make any sense to run businesses so ineffectually. The Port Macquarie Bunnings is massive, easily on a par with a B&Q superstore so lack of space isn’t a problem. How can anyone justify stocking a halogen garden lamp but not its bulb that goes with it? Its just plain bonkers. I fully realize that coming to a region with only about 50,000 inhabitants is going to be somewhat different from almost anywhere in the UK. I just wish the shops could grow up a bit and get out from the 60’s mentality and actually provide a good service.

The Bloke

I work in a hardware store (not Bunnings), so I could possibly answer why they don't carry bulk sand for cement. It is that if you have bulk sand, you need at least a bobcat to load it and enough room for trucks to turn and dump it. Also in a residential area constant noise form the engine would have complaints from residents. With leasing rates at welll over $100/sqm in the city area, they can't afford to allocate 50-100sqm required. The sand you get on bags is normally for paving not for concreting which requires a more courser type than for pavers. If you have bulk sand you'd have to have bulk soil, rocks, bark etc. It all comes down to dollars to be spent and the profit margin.

I do agree though with you that sometimes there are products stocked that should have others to compliment them.

Badge

Agreed. Arkon - relax mate. It's not that bad, really it isn't. Have you been to Africa, or parts of Latin America?

Badge

Badge

at last - a sane response.

Badge

The Bloke

Yeah, but you can beat your next fire that I'll be slated by someone who has recently taken great delight in slagging people, as you have probably read.

cadman

B&Q sell both types of sand in bags. Sharp sand and builders sand.

I think the OP is right to question why they don't sell items that compliment each other and I too would be frustrated if I went to B&Q / Bunnings / whatever and they sold cement in bags but not sand in bags. From my experience, the "instant" concrete pre mixed in bags isn't a patch on proper concrete - they don't use fullsize limestone chippings for a start.
I do thin you should relax a bit though arkon! you're in a new country and things are bound to be different. Now you know that if you want snad AND cement in one place, go to the landscapers/builders yard type place? maybe?

I tell you what, if someone from B&Q/Bunnings/wherever started reading the label of something out of my trolley I'd be bemused as well.

Before you all jump down my throat, I anticipate loving australia when I egt there, I appreciate it will be different, at times frustrating and that you really do need to accept that it will be different, and try and see the funny side of strange practices compared to the UK.

Cadman

hevs

Well I'm just devastated . I live in my local Bunnings (where they sell sand and cement, but as Ceri pointed out its a rip off!) and i have never had anyone do a weirdo peek in my basket, I think i might just cry