By Patrick Avenell
Woolworths home improvement chain Masters will be opening new warehouses in along the Eastern Seaboard over the next few months, including a new store in Sydney, where it has struggled to find suitable locations.
Masters has not opened a store in Sydney since its first outlet in Gregory Hills, southwest Sydney, was unveiled in late 2011. Over the course of 2012,
Masters has opened numerous stores in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia on its way to Woolworths’ projected target of 150.
During this time, however, Masters has only opened one other store in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, in Rutherford in the Hunter Valley.
For comparison, Masters’ chief rival Bunnings currently has 77 stores in New South Wales.
Masters’ low representation in the Premier State will increase slightly next month when it opens its new warehouse at the corner of the Hume Highway and Muir Road in Chullora, right in the heart of Sydney’s booming western suburbs.
Opening soon after this store, in December 2012, will be a new Masters warehouse in South Morang, Victoria, at the corner of McDonalds Road and Plenty Road.
Then, in January 2013, Masters will open another Queensland store, on Old Coach Road in Upper Coomera. Toowoomba will then get the Masters treatment in March 2012, when a new store on Hume Street in Kearneys Spring is opened.
Australian capital cities still not being serviced by Masters include Hobart and Darwin. Amusingly, the Masters website still happily advises residents of Hobart to travel 551 kilometres from to Mornington for their shopping, while Darwinians only have to travel 1,680 kilometres to their nearest Masters, in Cairns.
This article first appeared on Current.com.au