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Here in the UK, we have been seeing this for some years now.
B&Q, Homebase, Wickes, Argos, Screwfix these are all large stores where i live and yet they sell similar products are all located on the same industrial estate and have Extremely high prices for the same products, some own parts of the other companies.
All the small shops have been undercut to the point they either fold or get bought out by the larger companies, once the market has little competition they govern the price at which things can be sold.
Here's a really good one that happened a while ago, a company called Screwfix, was once very competitive price wise , family founded and run, then got bought up by B&Q, the prices suddenly increased in line with the larger companies, the founding family made loads of money out of the buyout, but they forgot to put a new start up clause in the contract, the son of the family then started a very similar business called ToolStation which just so happens to be on the same estate and is now a lot cheaper than Screwfix LOL.
So B&Q own Screwfix and Argos and Homebase are owned by the same company, Wickes is owned by Travis Perkins which also have a store down the road.
I had to buy some wooden 6mm dowel plugs
homebase pack of 50 £1.99
b&Q pack of 25 £2.18
wickes pack of 25 £2.03
screwfix pack of 100 £1.74
Tool Station pack of 200 £2.53 LOL
The most annoying thing that happens all the time, infact happened for mother's day, i bought a large potted plant for mum @ £19.95 and it looked really got value for money, went in the day after mothers day and the same plant had been reduced down to half price. Grrrr
It can be so annoying, the times i have bought something even at half price and then seen it even cheaper from the same company a little later, how about all the poor old people that payed full price, it makes my blood boil.
I do wonder how long it will be before the owners of Argos and Homebase closes one brand down, the same for B&Q & Screwfix, Wickes and Travis Perkins, after all they are in effect in competition with themselves.
In the last couple of years we have seen this with car insurance companies as well.
I entered my details into a comparison site, i had a phone call within minuets from a company called Swinton, the quote was high, within another couple of minuets i had another call from a company called Bullseye(Somthing like that), Turns out they were owned by the same underlying company, and when i checked into the top 10 best returned results from the comparison site, most were owned by 1 parent company Grrr, it was not so easy to find this out until a bit of digging was done.
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Topic: One BIG Company (Read 3644 times)
