# Forum More Stuff Debate & Technical Discussion  What happens to the returns?

## Bros

I started this tread from an idea on the Bosch sander who's history is suspect. 
Now days everything you buy is in blister packs and I have taken several things back to Bunnings that I have had to open only to find it doesn't fit. 
Recently I took a pack of A4 clear covers back to Officeworks as they didn't fit the binder even thought is said it did so back it went and they got me the right ones that did fit. I asked the girl behind the counter what they did with them and they said they will go in the specials box and someone will buy them.

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## phild01

I've often seen blister packs taped back up, on the shelf.

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## Bros

> I've often seen blister packs taped back up, on the shelf.

  At Bunnings? I have never seen it

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## PlatypusGardens

> I've often seen blister packs taped back up, on the shelf.

   

> At Bunnings? I have never seen it

  
I have but on the discounted trolley, not main shelf

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## phild01

On the rare occasion (that aren't on discount), but with Bunnings you sometimes need to look for missing bits if the packs can be opened up a bit.

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## commodorenut

I have seen opened/bits missing packs on the tables along the front (the ones you pass on the way back to the registers).  Usually it's one or 2 folding tables set up, and an oddball selection of end-of-line items, and items with missing parts or damage.  They aren't there all the time - I think they do them once a month, or perhaps quarterly - when they have enough to justify getting out the manual pricing gun. 
I bought a 3-light LED light fitting from Castle Hill Bunnings that had clearly been returned (had the customer's surname & date written on the box, with "1 missing" in the same texta).  
Only had 2 of the 3 LED globes in it, but I was only after the fitting, and for $15 the missing globe didn't worry me ($100 fitting any other time) when it could be replaced for $5-10. 
I've also bought a 1/2 box of small gal brackets.  Someone had opened them and taken some, leaving the rest.  It was clearly marked as "not full qty" on the outside of the box, and was something like $5. 
On each occasion, broken/short items were all clearly marked, and the price tags reflected that too.

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## Handyjack

Sometimes the items are put back on the shelf.
I was fitting two curtain tracks supplied by the client. The first one did not have screws in it - no biggie as I have a box of screws. The second one the package was sealed differently (original packing) and had the screws. I could only assume the first one was a return.

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## commodorenut

Don't discount the a-holes who know they're going to lose/break critical parts, and steal those parts from other packs on the shelf & hide them in the legitimately purchased item. 
Some of them are very clever too - hiding stuff in plain sight was one I saw (not quite the same as missing parts though).  I watched a guy screwing fittings into several irrigation solenoids (removing the tags from those parts) and then at the register he only payed for the solenoids.  The cashier was none the wiser until I told her (I was next in line) - the "greeter" chased him down, and the "oh, I forgot about them" excuse came out...

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## Godzilla73

Saw an old duck get dragged off at the local Green Shed because she "forgot " about the pot plants in the rubbish bin she paid for.  
Also watched a staff member  spy on a customer removing single GPO's from a Bulkpack and loading it up with Doubles only to catch a glimpse of the spy and run off, the only thing missing was the tune from Benny Hill as they bailed him up.

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## r3nov8or

I've seen things taped back up, not only at Bunnings. I am OCD about this and will almost never buy the front item for 'valuable items'   :Smilie:   
Bros, I too wonder about the bigger things, power tools etc, and I reckon we all pay a percentage each time to account for failure rates. So I never never not take something back I feel isn't as it should be. 'They' win if you accept anything but perfection  :Smilie:

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## METRIX

> Saw an old duck get dragged off at the local Green Shed because she "forgot " about the pot plants in the rubbish bin she paid for.  
> Also watched a staff member  spy on a customer removing single GPO's from a Bulkpack and loading it up with Doubles only to catch a glimpse of the spy and run off, the only thing missing was the tune from Benny Hill as they bailed him up.

  They can't do anything as the guy didn't try to leave the shop with the exchanged goods, it would only be the employees word against his, unless camera footage was presented. 
Castle Hill store is a cracker, you can pick the undercover security a mile away, because they act so suspiciously. 
I parked in the trade section went to pickup some stuff and noticed one particular guy following me, I knew straight away he was undercover, so I led him all around the shop to see, upstairs / downstairs, into the nursery back to the trade desk, kept following me. 
I was going to go up to him and say, Mate I'm not going to pinch anything as I know you're  undercover because you act too suspiciously, but thought nah I won't just in case.
Anyway paid for the stuff, I know a lot of the guys at Castle Hill, said to the guy at the desk, that guy over there is security, reply was yes, said thought so as I led him on a wild goose chase around the store. 
He kept hanging around the timber section, got in the car to go to the boom gate, as I got there he came running over like forest gump saying he wanted to check the truck, sure I said, check whatever you want, you won't find anything.
Checked all the tool boxes, looked inside, found nothing, said that's ok nothing there, so I said of course there is nothing there, as I picked you as a security the moment you started following me around the shop, he looked perplexed. 
I said hope you had a good journey upstairs and downstairs and all around the shop.

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## METRIX

> Don't discount the a-holes who know they're going to lose/break critical parts, and steal those parts from other packs on the shelf & hide them in the legitimately purchased item. 
> Some of them are very clever too - hiding stuff in plain sight was one I saw (not quite the same as missing parts though).  I watched a guy screwing fittings into several irrigation solenoids (removing the tags from those parts) and then at the register he only payed for the solenoids.  The cashier was none the wiser until I told her (I was next in line) - the "greeter" chased him down, and the "oh, I forgot about them" excuse came out...

  I see people knock stuff off from Bunnings all the time, I couldn't care less as you pay over the top prices for most stuff so they are ripping us off every purchase.
As far as I'm concerned if they can get away with it good for them, after all it's the store security's job to catch them.

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## METRIX

> I've often seen blister packs taped back up, on the shelf.

  I also have seen plenty of returned items for resale on the shelf, you can tell them due to sticky tape or similar holding them back together, I won't ever buy them as it's most likely they are missing a critical component.

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## commodorenut

I struck up a convo with a security guy at C/Hill bunnies.  Noticed him following me (I was one of the only people in the store that early) and after a couple of minutes of being followed, I turned to him & said "sorry mate, I don't bat for your team, I'm married to a lovely lady" and after the red drained from his face we both had a laugh as he protested his "innocence" on that topic.  After a few minutes of idle chit-chat I told him he'd best be doing his job looking for people who might be stealing stuff, and he asked how I knew he was undercover..... 
They stand out like dog's proverbials don't they? 
One of the guys at work does part-time shifts at that store too.  I told him about it, and he said he's noticed that they are terrible at trying to be covert, but on the weekends they have people that really blend in well, because of the greater % mix of DIY/Joe Public rather than the 50%+ tradie mix on early weekday mornings.

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## pharmaboy2

They ask you if there is anything wrong with it, if yes, details, if no, back on shelf, but I'm sure they'd have a good handle on what will sell or not. 
ill often take the opened package  - I get to be sure it's correct, but it's useful to have some opened packages on shelf so you see exactly what it is

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## PlatypusGardens

Haha sounds like Metrix and Commodorenut have spotted the same (not so) undercover security guy.

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## METRIX

> They stand out like dog's proverbials don't they? 
> .

  There is a 4ft high Asian undercover at one of the bigger stores over my way, she is like James Bond, ducking behind shelves, hiding behind the poles, pretending to be looking at something, she is so obvious is laughable.
The others are all of Middle Eastern males, again you can tell them a mile away, I have seen them at Castle HIll pick up a guy who had somehow managed to get about 10 powertools out of the tools shop and into the back of his van in the trade yard. 
There was a big Sidcrome bag full of hand tools as well, how he managed to get it all out of the tool shop is amazing. 
They pulled him over as he tried to drive out, everything was hidden under a heap of empty cardboard boxes in the back of his van, next thing they reversed his van, and took him away, I saw the cops turn up not long after, he would have been in a bit of trouble as there must have been thousands of $$ of stuff in there.

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## OBBob

I was in a rush so I was walking pretty quick towards the timber yard exit last weekend... the guy chased after me calling "I need to check your receipt". I said "I'm not going out the gate, my car is parked in that timber aisle with more stuff in it"..." oops" he said.   :Biggrin:   
I reckon they'd lose heaps out those rear timber yard exits though.

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## METRIX

I was told it's about 18M per year  :Eek:  
I guess that's a drop in the ocean as Wesfarmers turned over 31Billion last year and 1.43 Billion profit

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## PlatypusGardens

Wonder how much of that loss is caused by staff though.....

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## commodorenut

Heard a rumour the other day from a power tool rep that a crim or a possible bunnings employee from another store (who was not recognised at the store he went into) wore a bunnings shirt & name tag, and proceeded to stack a trolley full of power tools, and wheel it towards the rear. Not one person questioned him.  He loaded it all into a waiting station wagon, and walked beside it down to the gate, pretending to sight the receipt. 
It was only when the rep for the tool company turned up later in the day & made mention of a great amount of sales to the confused staff that they put it all together - they just assumed he was a new employee taking end-of-line stock off the shelf for the specials bin.

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## OBBob

> Heard a rumour the other day from a power tool rep that a crim or a possible bunnings employee from another store (who was not recognised at the store he went into) wore a bunnings shirt & name tag, and proceeded to stack a trolley full of power tools, and wheel it towards the rear. Not one person questioned him.  He loaded it all into a waiting station wagon, and walked beside it down to the gate, pretending to sight the receipt. 
> It was only when the rep for the tool company turned up later in the day & made mention of a great amount of sales to the confused staff that they put it all together - they just assumed he was a new employee taking end-of-line stock off the shelf for the specials bin.

  Sounds feasible. I used to have a red jacket and would often get asked for help as if I was an employee. Also, a previous office I worked at had multiple laptops stolen by a fake courier who just walked in, loaded up a trolley and walked out.

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## Bros

> Wonder how much of that loss is caused by staff though.....

  There is a term for it Wastage.

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## David.Elliott

The wife went to buy me a block plane from B just before xmas. I did mention that one would be handy.  $169.00 I think.. 
Wandered into the Armadale store and went looking...could not find one.  Asked for help, gent came over and said "here there are...???" oh, nope not there. Checked the Computer, showed 3 in stock... 
Looked up the system for other stores.  Cockburn had 6 and Harrisdale 4... She went to Cockburn, thinking shows 6, must be one there...and... nope. Guy says sounds like a pack qty. Let me check out the back and... nope not there either...
He rang Harrisdale...sure they said,  let me check... and nope, none on the shelf, but system shows 4? 
My wife in a couple of hours discovered over $1000 of missing stock...and I did not get one. 
Just after Xmas, was out looking for a dash globe made from unobtainium...ended up at a Repco. We don't have the globe here but it is at Cockburn. I challenged him to make sure and related the wifes experience at B.  One of the Repco staff used to work at B and informed me that those planes were a favourite for the staff to nick. Small, high value, and fit in a lunchbox...

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## PlatypusGardens

:Hihi:  cockburn  :Rofl:

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## Uncle Bob

> One of the Repco staff used to work at B and informed me that those planes were a favourite for the staff to nick. Small, high value, and fit in a lunchbox...

  I'm sure that there's some shady staff that "perk" some stuff, but I reckon that 80% of shinkage is stolen by the "customers", 19% is short supplied, and 1% staff "perked".

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## PlatypusGardens

> I'm sure that there's some shady staff that "perk" some stuff, but I reckon that 80% of shinkage is stolen by the "customers", 19% is short supplied, and 1% staff "perked".

  I'd say you're way off. 
1%....hardly

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## Uncle Bob

> I'd say you're way off. 
> 1%....hardly

  It's impossible to know either way. But I do know that when staff leave at night their bags are checked.

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## PlatypusGardens

It's a well known fact that the majority of loss from any company is caused by its employees.  
A bag check won't yield anything as nobody would put anything in their bag as they know their bag will get checked.
Thieves are smarter than that and will be in cahoots with guys as described above, pretending to be sales reps.
For example

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## Uncle Bob

> It's a well known fact that the majority of loss from any company is caused by its employees.

  And this is what Bunnings thinks too and I think it's wrong.  I've pretty sure that most of the shinkage just goes out the front door, hidden in things, missed or has the packaging swapped or removed, but the bulk with be heading out the timber yard gate.

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## PlatypusGardens

> And this is what Bunnings thinks too and I think it's wrong.  I've pretty sure that most of the shinkage just goes out the front door, hidden in things, missed or has the packaging swapped or removed, but the bulk with be heading out the timber yard gate.

  Yes, having a drive-through section of a place like that is probably costing them a fair bit of money in theft.
Perhaps more than emplying a person full time in each store, to bring the goods out to a designated area where people would park their vehicles waiting to be loaded. 
Most other places seem to operate like that....park over there, go inside and tell them what you want, pay for it and the boys bring it out to you...  
Or maybe even just getting rid of the big double doors that anyone can walk through without passing an actual checkout would be a start?   
I still think staff theft is more than 1% though.

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## chrisp

> I'm sure that there's some shady staff that "perk" some stuff, but I reckon that 80% of shinkage is stolen by the "customers", 19% is short supplied, and 1% staff "perked".

  Google lead me to this general retail article - https://www.insideretail.com.au/blog...urting-retail/  
It quotes the figures as: shoplifting = 39% and employee theft = 25% 
I'm not sure how accurate the figures are and how they would translate to Bunnings and hardware stores in general.

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## OBBob

> Yes, having a drive-through section of a place like that is probably costing them a fair bit of money in theft.
> Perhaps more than emplying a person full time in each store, to bring the goods out to a designated area where people would park their vehicles waiting to be loaded. 
> Most other places seem to operate like that....park over there, go inside and tell them what you want, pay for it and the boys bring it out to you...  
> Or maybe even just getting rid of the big double doors that anyone can walk through without passing an actual checkout would be a start?   
> I still think staff theft is more than 1% though.

  Masters were much more strict on this... didn't work out for them though.   :Frown:

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## Jon

> I'm sure that there's some shady staff that "perk" some stuff, but I reckon that 80% of shinkage is stolen by the "customers", 19% is short supplied, and 1% staff "perked".

  Years ago I heard a story (possibly  urban legend) about a fella that worked at the railway workshops at Chullora and he would occasionally  leave pushing a wheel barrow of useless junk.  No one bothered him as it was common knowledge and there was no value in the stuff.
It came to light much later that he was knocking off wheel barrows.  
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

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## PlatypusGardens

> Masters were much more strict on this... didn't work out for them though.

  (Part of) The problem with Masters was (maybe) that everyone compared it to Bunnings.     

> Years ago I heard a story (possibly  urban legend) about a fella that worked at the railway workshops at Chullora and he would occasionally  leave pushing a wheel barrow of useless junk.  No one bothered him as it was common knowledge and there was no value in the stuff.
> It came to light much later that he was knocking off wheel barrows.

  
Haha excellent

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## Bros

> Years ago I heard a story (possibly  urban legend) about a fella that worked at the railway workshops at Chullora and he would occasionally  leave pushing a wheel barrow of useless junk.  No one bothered him as it was common knowledge and there was no value in the stuff.
> It came to light much later that he was knocking off wheel barrows.

  I don't know about the truth but this one was true story. I worked in the Railway workshops as an apprentice mechanical fitter before I saw the light and a bloke in there had a length of SS that he made a propeller shaft for his boat. He scratched his head for a while and came up with the idea of painting it black got a tag from the railways parcels office addressed to himself and carried it out the gate.

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## commodorenut

> .... One of the Repco staff used to work at B and informed me that those planes were a favourite for the staff to nick. Small, high value, and fit in a lunchbox...

  You'd be amazed at how much can be taken out in a lunchbox.  When I was in charge of purchasing, stock control & shop orders, we would order in 3.6m lengths of copper to be turned.  Some of these bars were cut down by an automated saw into various lengths, and hand-fed into "chucker" lathes that would turn both ends, one after the other.
We had accurate material bills, and I even double checked them, but I couldn't work out how we'd end up 2-3 sticks short on a job needing 10 sticks. 
i even checked the incoming deliveries to make sure we weren't short supplied. 
Then by chance one day I walked past the saw & noticed it set on a measurement that wasn't one of the standard few we used that covered all possible parts made from that bar.  I kept any eye on it, and noticed the operator (who covered 3 CNC machines as well) would occasionally come back & put the cut-offs into the cupboard under the saw, rather than on the parts trolley to go to the CNCs. 
We found out where it was going, but who/why?  The operator claimed he was told to cut them that size on the job card - it had scrawled in texta on it 100x 285mm long.  We never hand-wrote anything - it was all printed, so somebody in the factory was "ordering" these bits.  We put the word out amongst some of the more loyal guys that someone was aksing for odd lengths to be cut, and a reward would be offered if they found out who.  One guy simply said "check Al's lunchbox & footy socks when he's lined up at the bundy clock" - footy socks?  The guy wore tracksuit pants, even in summer.  Anyway, spot inspection, and here was over 2kg of copper in his lunch box, and a further kg or so down his footy socks under his trackies.  We worked out he'd been doing it for over 12 months, and at the time with the scrap value of copper, he would have made around $40/week, which covered the cost of his smokes back then. 
Another place I worked in lost over $1 million worth of stock (company cost - about $4 mil in commercial value) between annual stocktakes.  They had cameras installed everywhere but the toilets, PIs were hired to spy on staff leaving (one guy was lambasted after carrying empty boxes to his car to help his kid move out of home).  Bag inspections every arvo (despite a lot of the missing stock being quite large items).  Still couldn't find the culprits.   Once again, by chance they were discovered - and they were insiders in cahoots with a customer.  The customer would order a small value order of parts, and the admin lady would process the order and make sure her husband had to pack it - and he added everything else they also wanted that wasn't on the order, and wasn't invoiced.  They were caught when a $30 order that should have weighed <3kg and gone in an airbag went on TNT because it was over 70kg across 5 cartons!
Further investigations revealed the customer was paying them 1/2 of what his normal cost would be for each item.  What really stacked up against them, was his sales for 10 years were something like $4.5 - $5mil per year, and right when the stock started disappearing, they dropped to $1.5 mil/year without explanation.

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## METRIX

> The wife went to buy me a block plane from B just before xmas. I did mention that one would be handy.  $169.00 I think..

  If you really want that Stanley block plane, you will find it cheaper to purchase it from England rather then your local Bunnings, no surprises there.  Stanley 60.1/2 Block Plane C/w Pouch 5-12-060 | eBay

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## OBBob

> If you really want that Stanley block plane, you will find it cheaper to purchase it from England rather then your local Bunnings, no surprises there.  Stanley 60.1/2 Block Plane C/w Pouch 5-12-060 | eBay

  I reckon they just didn't know what a block plane was...   :Biggrin:

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## METRIX

One of the bigger trade plumbing suppliers has a self serve feature for all the fittings, the way they get around theft (or most of it) is you get weighed on the way in and out, and discrepancies they know you have knocked something off, quite clever, only a smart crook could defeat that, which could be done, take in something that weighs a certain amount, and grab fittings of the same amount without getting caught. 
Was at Castle Hill Bunnings one day, talking to one of the guys, we were walking down the bagged item isle, when he noticed a heap of empty blue metal bags shoved in between the shelf. 
Ended up some tradie went in, slashed the bags open, tipped all the blue metal into the back of the ute, and drove out, the gate person was none the wiser as they don;t sell bulk material, quite ingenious when you think about it.

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## METRIX

> I reckon they just didn't know what a block plane was...

  I could imagine the conversation, do we sell planes made from blocks ?

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## OBBob

> I could imagine the conversation, do we sell planes made from blocks ?

  Yes... and so much cheaper!

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## pharmaboy2

> I see people knock stuff off from Bunnings all the time, I couldn't care less as you pay over the top prices for most stuff so they are ripping us off every purchase.
> As far as I'm concerned if they can get away with it good for them, after all it's the store security's job to catch them.

  Tacit approval of shoplifting? 
one of the reasons things are so expensive is people in Bunnings think it's OK to steal. 
unfortunately, as elsewhere in this thread, it's not "their" fault if someone fails to pay for the other stuff in their ute  - it's not "their" job to ensure you don't steal stuff.    
I bet you guys would not be so relaxed if it were a junky stealing your laptop out of your car

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## PlatypusGardens

Haha funniest shoplifting incident I've ever seen was a woman being dragged kicking and screaming from a clothing store in England, which could be described as 5 notches lower than "Best & Less" here.
Like, serious cheap shop. 
.....trying to steal a pair of socks   :Rofl5:

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## METRIX

> Tacit approval of shoplifting? 
> one of the reasons things are so expensive is people in Bunnings think it's OK to steal. 
> unfortunately, as elsewhere in this thread, it's not "their" fault if someone fails to pay for the other stuff in their ute  - it's not "their" job to ensure you don't steal stuff.    
> I bet you guys would not be so relaxed if it were a junky stealing your laptop out of your car

  Wake up and smell the flowers, the reason things are so expensive here is because Australians are treated as suckers, the mark up at Bunnings is only the start, go to any other retailer and the equivalent good's overseas are half the price, you cant tell me it costs the same price per item to ship stuff here, considering it all comes from the same factory in China, and we are a lot closer to China than Europe or USA. 
The other reason stuff is so expensive here is because you have greedy businesses, who's main priority is to line their pockets with gold, but they have to apiece the shareholders, who want more profits every year so they get more money, more profits means more shareholders means more money, it is a viscious circle. 
This is why I predominantly deal with small businesses, as they don;t have shareholders, you are generally dealing with the owners, or the owners are in the factory or office, and they look after you with the price and service which gets them return business. 
 I am only too happy to pass these businesses information onto anyone who asks for a recommendation, I have done this many times for my Kitchen suppliers, Stainless Fabricators, Timber Suppliers, I don't get a cent for doing that, and don;t expect to either. 
To say stuff is so expensive because people think it's ok to steal is wrong, stealing is only a small part of the running costs of these big businesses, it's a risk you take when you expand your business to more than yourself, and trust your employee's to look after stock etc when you're not around, and allow people to self serve. 
I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying it happens, it's always going to happen, until you bring in robots to issue the goods via a secure system, take people out of the equation and the problem will stop overnight. 
No it's not my job to keep tabs on everyone in Bunnings or any other shop for that matter, that's why these places hire security and have cameras, if these shops can't detect where stuff is walking out the door, then they need to reassess their theft prevention policies, because obviously it's not working what they are currently doing, they should hold the theft prevention companies accountable for a percentage of what goes missing because that means their not doing the job right, If I don't do my job right the client would hold me accountable why are they any different. 
If someone want's to take the risk and steal something that's their issue I'm not to question why they are doing it, perhaps it's because the piece they are taking is worth 5c and Bunnings is charging $20 for it, so they don't see the value in it.

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## NZC

> If you really want that Stanley block plane, you will find it cheaper to purchase it from England rather then your local Bunnings, no surprises there.  Stanley 60.1/2 Block Plane C/w Pouch 5-12-060 | eBay

  
I've bought off these guys before, it actually ships from the East Coast. I only noticed because it got to Perth in 3 days.

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