Swadling’s big Sydney name grows strong
Store name: (A.W. Swadlings) Swadling’s Timber and Hardware Store owner: Colin & Gianna Swadling, Danny Gattone Buying group: NATBUILD Swadling’s Timber and Hardware has grown its business in an area populated with older style weatherboard homes and is well known for its heavy alterations and additions. The store services building work within the city as well.
With a customer base of 85 per cent trade, 10 per cent retail and five per cent commercial, the store’s strength remains primarily in timber, with the business building a good reputation on its building supplies, according to Danny. “We are well known for our timber supplies with milling, which is a dying trade in Sydney. The milling is used for profile matching and special orders, so we do specialise in a lot of bench tops and joinery as well. We have also found that when you have a good timber offer, the hardware becomes a very good add on to create much more of a one stop shop for the builders,” Danny said. “What we have found over the years is that timber is the lead in product for our customers and then hardware. So customers tend to buy hardware after coming in to buy the timber. Our biggest selling area is timber and we also specialise in skirtings and architraves. We also have a very strong fastening section and a heavy building supplies department, which goes hand in hand with the timber,” he said. Local competition in the area is close with a Bunnings store just five kilometres away and plenty of independents in the area as well. “In the city metropolitan there’s plenty of competition but in our immediate area we’ve got Crescent Timber which is only one kilometre away and is one of the group’s stores – however they have a different clientele to us, so I think we are a little bit insulated because of the location,” Danny said. The Rozelle store’s business has grown significantly in recent years, particularly after a fire destroyed one of the group’s stores in Roseberry, but then management decided to relocate to Rozelle and they haven’t looked back since. “We had a store in Roseberry which had a fire in 2008 – hence we relocated this business to the existing Rozelle store. Since bringing that business over from 2008, the Rozelle business has grown 400 per cent over six years. This is because we brought a good customer base with us plus, we increased the stock range, increased the hardware size, put in more and more products and of course invested a bit more expertise in the business,” Danny said. |
The store is now 1800 square metres undercover and also features an extensive outside drive in yard with timber racking, which is probably another 1200 square metres externally.![]() “Colin is in accounting, so he asked myself to join him. I was in the building game at the time, so I joined him in 1986 to take over the Alexandria store along with my sister Gianna who was in the banking industry, and who is married to Colin,” Danny said. “Over the years we purchased several stores, with our next acquisition being Crescent Timber Annandale. With this acquisition my brother Ron Gattone joined and he also had a building background.The next acquisition was Blacktown building supplies, and then along with this we had two ex-employees that joined in partnerships with this branch – Gary Attard and Phil Screpis. Then we purchased Canterbury Timber and we are all shareholders of this one,” Danny said. Blacktown and Canterbury are Mitre 10 stores, with the remaining stores trading and flourishing under the Swadling’s independent banner, which continues to grow as an iconic name in the Sydney Timber and Hardware industry. |