On 16 Jan, 09:21, (Andrew Gabriel) wrote:
B&Q used to - I still have some of the bags of loose nails in
the garage. That, and drums of cable you cut the length you require,
drums of hose you cut the length you require, etc enabled them to
keep a much larger range than they do today, which is why they no
longer meet my requirements. For example, they used to keep a drum
of 6 core mains flex to cut off what you want. It probably wasn't a
fast moving item, but they only needed a couple of drums in the store.
There won't be enough sales of it to justify shelf space for pre-cut
bundles, so it's gone.

I was in France recently and buying cable was by the metre, but you
had to find an assistant to cut the required lengths and write you a
ticket to take to the till, so more labour intensive.

Pete