Over half of Australia’s population now shops at Bunnings in an average four-week period, Roy Morgan Research data has revealed, with Masters, which it has recently been speculated Woolworths could be getting set to offload, seeing slight year-on-year gains.The Roy Morgan data reveals the extent of Bunnings’ dominance and the steep task facing Masters to build market share.
According to Roy Morgan, 50.4 per cent of the Australian population aged 14+ (9.8 million people) now shop at Bunnings in an average four weeks, up from 46.7 per cent year-on-year, representing an increase of almost 800,000 shoppers per four-week period.
Masters, meanwhile, saw some growth, with 7.7 per cent of the population now shopping there in an average four-week period, up from 6.3 per cent year-on-year.
Modest growth was posted by Mitre 10 (9.4 per cent, up from 9.3 per cent) and Home Hardware (2.9 per cent, up from 2.8 per cent), while True Value Hardware saw a dip from 1 per cent to 0.7 per cent.
 |
While Bunning dominates the market as a whole, Roy Morgan data reveals that the one segment in which it lags behind its competitors is in the garden.
“With more than 50 per cent of the population passing through its check-outs in an average four weeks, Bunnings reigns supreme over the national hardware scene,” Andrew Price, Roy Morgan Research general manager – consumer products, commented.
While most of the smaller chains gained customers over the last year, Price noted they “stand little chance” of catching up with Bunnings any time soon, observing that “one has to wonder whether hardware retail in Australia is close to hitting saturation point, given Bunnings’ massive numbers”.
“However, our data indicates that the smaller chains count higher proportions of people interested in gardening among their customer bases,” he commented. “Maintaining and building on this important segment could be one way of ensuring a future in this unbalanced market, rather than trying to challenge Bunnings’ generalised ‘lowest prices’ approach.
“Of course, if we’re talking cold, hard customer volume, the combined number of gardening customers who shop at Masters, True Value, Home Hardware and Mitre 10 is still less than 50 per cent of Bunnings’ gardening customers.
“But it seems obvious that targeting shoppers with specific interests is a more viable tactic for these smaller players than trying to please everybody all of the time.”
