It’s the Bunnings slogan everyone’s heard - a promise to beat a competitor’s price on the same stocked item by 10 per cent.
But there’s a catch to the hardware giant’s famous price guarantee.
While Coles and Woolworths have been under intense scrutiny, Bunnings - which has a much higher profit margin than either of them - has mostly escaped attention.
In-store, a 0.9m Citeco ladder sits behind a large red sign with the same commitment: Find a competitor with the same in-stock item - 10 per cent off.
But there is no competitor that stocks the Citeco 0.9m ladder.
That’s because Citeco is a Bunnings home brand. Not only is it manufactured for Bunnings, the hardware giant also owns the Citeco trademark.
It’s far from the only item.
Through the trademark register and questions to Bunnings, Four Corners has found the hardware giant has more than 9000 home-brand products.
If you can find these Bunnings buckets cheaper elsewhere, Bunnings says it will beat the price.
It’s hard to not see it.
There’s usually only one or two brands in each category that can be found elsewhere.
If it’s not a disguised “home brand” it’s an exclusivity deal, and if it’s not an exclusivity deal, it’s probably 50% or more, more expensive.
Posted here as technically this is about Australia, but we have the same thing here, and Mitre 10 does the same thing.
I’ve got some very good discounts on tools from mitre10 by using their guarantee.
Bunnings usually have the same items (in my case DeWalt tools, but any international brand should work) for a few cents less: instant 15% discount. Occasionally the difference is several % before the price match.
It’s worth exploiting it when you can: they’re exploiting you anyways…
Did you compare across other places to buy to see if it was actually a good discount or was it just bringing it down to a similar price as elsewhere?
I once got a 15% discount on a premium insinkerator because bunnings had it for very slightly less. This was years ago, at time I thought I had got a great deal but now I’m starting to wonder if I should have looked online for other places and actually checked the going rate.
I’ve found that place makers tends to be a bit more expensive.
Most of the alternative local stores just don’t keep the stock on hand or are advertising GST exclusive pricing for professionals.
Powertools usually have pretty small profit margins and there are quite a few different shops you can get them at, so occasionally you can get a good deal if a retailer offers price beats. Especially if it’s trade level brands, Makita, DeWalt, Hikoki, Milwaukee etc. A lot of the cheaper brands are exclusive so you can’t actually compare them elsewhere, Ryobi and AEG for example are Bunnings only.
Mate, heaps of these cunty retailers pull this shit.
Another trick big box retail can pull is when you make a big enough order with some well known brands you can have them sell it with a custom part number, so you when folks try and price match it you can say ‘nope, not the same’.
I think they do that for black friday sales a lot but they actually change the parts to cheaper components with less features.
