Very true, erm. We had a fantastic local hardware/builders merchant (Whites t/a Corrs) in the beautiful seaside resort town of Balbriggan which closed down a year or two back... most likely a casualty of Screwfix coming to Ireland with all sorts of hardware at the euro equivalent of UK trade prices and, yes, I did directly contribute to it's demise and I do regret that now. Of course, not dissimilar to Free Now in the taxi trade, once Srewfix attracted a sufficient number of trade clients and achieved it's desired level of market penetration the prices crept or leapt up to match the remaining Irish competition.
That said, I was in the market for a good quality wood filler recently and found this one on the Screwfix www site:
https://www.screwfix.ie/p/ronseal-high-performance-wood-filler-natural-550g/51811At €18.45 for a 550g tub it was far from a bargain in my mind but I decided to splash out and give it a go.... so, as I generally do these days, I decided to have a look in the remaining large local hardware/builders providers, EEC - not a store I ever liked, mainly because there's no consistency in pricing i.e. you could get 3 different prices for normal everyday stuff from 3 different staff members so you need to be prepared to haggle... having the Goodwins www site open on the product you want certainly helps in that regard but it's rarely a straightforward transaction. Anywaysanall, I found the same 550g tub on a shelf in the decorating section myself priced at €34.95, nearly double the Screwfix price. I didn't bother picking it up 'cos I figured there's no way they're coming down that much but I did go to the trade counter for a bag of sand and showed the man who served me (generally one of the lower price men!) the Screwfix page on my clever telephone asking if it was correctly priced on the shelf. He advised that it was and opined that Srewfix are bringing stuff straight from the UK, circumventing the established Irish supply chain at the expense of Irish jobs. He also suggested B&Q (same company as Srewfix) and Homebase do the same suggesting that Irish firms simply can't compete with such underhanded tactics. Of course, the most expensive wood filler I've ever considered buying now became a bargain so I picked up a tub in Screwfix.
