How Bowens’ Uber tie-up has revolutionised hardware delivery to the front door
Family owned Bowens’ Uber inspiration has shaken up the staid world of hardware delivery and it’s all thanks to a chance conversation with the former boss of electronics chain JB Hi-Fi.
It was a chance conversation over coffee in early 2023 with Richard Uechtritz, the former chief executive-turned director of retailer JB Hi-Fi, that gave Andy Bowen the inspiration to bring Uber to the long antiquated building supplies industry.
Nearly three-and-a-half years ago his family’s century-old Bowens timber and hardware business, which had been established by his great grandfather, launched its e-commerce function for trade and retail buyers.
But the conversation with Uechtritz last year proved to be a turning point in supercharging Bowens’ online ambitions.
Uechtritz said JB Hi-Fi, one of the nation’s premier electronic retailers, had been looking at ways to utilise its bricks-and-mortar network to deliver products to customers faster, and was trialing the “Uberisation” of its home delivery service.
Bowen quickly realised he could do the same.
The result is Bowens’ Uber Direct service – the company has a commercial agreement with the rideshare and delivery giant’s Australian arm – for timber and hardware products. It guarantees 90-minute deliveries via Uber drivers of up to eight boxes weighing up to 20kg to building sites within a 15km radius from a store.
So far, average delivery times for the service, which charges a $10 flat fee, are less than 60 minutes.
“The reason we invested in digital in the first place was to focus on the next generation of builder coming through. We were concerned that we were not engaging enough with that generation,” Bowen tells me over coffee in a nondescript meeting room at one of Bowens’ newest stores at Cheltenham in Melbourne’s southeast.
“It has been a difficult period for builders. So we are trying to do everything we can to make life easier for them.
“We hear time and time again that they are starved of time. It is disruptive for them to leave the building site. For us to be able to offer Uber is a huge advantage.
“It is to the point now where some of the builders are actually mandating with their teams to use the Uber service, rather than getting in the car and losing an hour off site.”
Sitting beside him is older brother John, who has been CEO of Bowens – which has operations across Melbourne and regional Victoria – since his father handed him the reins in 2005.
Andy joined the family business in 2015 as chief investment officer after working as an investment banker in New York.
“
Tradies and builders are growing up in a world where they are getting their deodorant and shaving cream in two hours from Amazon. This is the world that we are in,” says John, a 30-year Bowens veteran.
“We can’t continue to suggest that timber and building supplies sits outside of that.”
Over the past year Andy has also established an in-house e-commerce and marketing team focused on same-day delivery of the large and often fragile products needed by builders on work sites from Bowens’ 20 stores across Victoria.
“We effectively are a logistics company in many ways. We have our own vehicles, some contract vehicles, and are able to get product to site very quickly,” he says.
“When you are selling a commodity that you can buy across the road, you have to be really good at finding new products and being innovative.
“By making sure we deliver on time in full and deliver really quickly, we will differentiate ourselves even further from the competition.”
Seventeen per cent of deliveries from the Bowens’ store network are currently same day and the brothers want to double that number by the end of the calendar year.
Since early 2022 the firm has added about 15,000 products to its online offering, which is now about 55,000.
Its ultimate aim is to have every product that it sells, online.
Maintaining a family legacy
The “Uberisation” of Bowens is living proof of how John and Andy Bowen work together as a team.
John actually came across the idea first during a conversation with another former JB Hi-Fi chief, Richard Murray, but it was his younger brother who ran with it.
“This is where Andy is better than me on this stuff,” John says.
“When I was talking to Richard I just let this whole Uber thing wash over me. But when it came up again later with Andy, he jumped on it.”
Bowens is now in its fourth generation of family management and ownership.
Its legacy traces back to 1894 when Richard Bowen and Redmond Pomeroy began selling timber products from a small yard in North Melbourne under the name Bowen & Pomeroy, Timber Merchants.
Richard’s son, John senior, became managing director in 1931. John senior’s son, Jack – the father of John and Andy – took over in 1971.
For the past 13 years Bowens has also owned Timbertruss, one of the nation’s largest prefabrication timber manufacturers which employs staff in Victoria and Queensland.
John, and more recently his brother, have taken a planned approach to the demands and risks involved in building the business and have learned from the mistakes of the past.
In 1998 Bowens failed to launch a prefabricated door business, while in 2009 it abandoned plans for a windows/door manufacturing operation.
“My focus is more on the growth of the business, whether it be new buildings, rebuilding old ones or expanding the footprint, but also looking at ways to improve our processes. If that is through digital solutions, that is what I focus on,” Andy says.
“John has been in the business for 30-plus years. I’ve been in for just over nine years.
He’s got not just my respect, but the respect of everyone in the business.
“I think my experience outside the industry is a good thing. It has helped and there’s 12 years between us in age so there is certainly some respect there. I think we have worked quite well together.”
Andy worked at Goldman Sachs-JBWere in Australia before spending five years in New York with JPMorgan.
He returned to Melbourne in 2015 and spent two years in the Timbertruss business.
“I went from wearing a suit at JPMorgan’s headquarters on Park Avenue, to our manufacturing facility in Dandenong,” he says with a wry grin, noting the reason for his return was family in more ways than one.
“I met an Australian girl in New York and we got married there. But we knew we wanted to start a family in Australia. That wasn’t a difficult decision because I was very fortunate to have this amazing family business to come back to.”
He stresses he would not have joined Bowens if there were not an appetite from his brother, father and the board for growth.
“Really since 2015 the business has seen amazing growth. John has kept his promise to do that and we’ve continued to reinvest,” he says.
Their two sisters, Libby and Anna, are not involved in the business.
Family patriarch Jack Bowen celebrated his 80th birthday last year and continues as the company’s chairman.
“Certainly he’s a huge presence around when he walks in and talks to people. They just respect him so much,” John says.
“I haven’t bothered dad for a very long time with the bad bits in our business, because that’s my job or Andy’s job and the business’ job to deal with. But the good bits he still enjoys hearing about and he stays in touch with people.”
The smooth transition to the next generation has been assisted by a board of directors established by Jack Bowen and his brother, which meets once a month.
Asked what he has learned from his father, Andy replies: “That he famously remembers everyone’s name across the entire business. He’s very personable, authentic and he’s done a fantastic job engaging not just with customers, but also our staff; making the business feel like a family business.”
One of the longest serving Bowens staff members is Jeff Harvey, the father of retired champion Australian rules footballer Robert Harvey, who worked part-time at Bowens before launching his football career with St Kilda.
Jeff Harvey celebrated 60 years with Bowens in 2021 – the same year his eldest son, Steven, celebrated 33 years with the business.
“Dad is much loved around here.” Andy says.
“We need to carry that feeling forward. I think it is our responsibility. He’s done a phenomenal job to keep the business together and set it up so that we can carry it forward.”
Crunching the numbers
In the 2024 financial year Bowens will sell more than $600m of timber, building materials, hardware and prefabrication products, which is up from $460m in 2022.
Four stores have been opened since March 2022 at Warragul, Melton, Cheltenham and Belmont, while two stores at Hastings and Epping are currently being extended.
“We’ve never opened up that many stores so quickly. It would be unlikely for us to do that again,” John says.
He says the firm is “definitely” open to the idea of expanding the Bowens brand outside of its home state, but stresses “we are not going to fall over ourselves trying”.
It is also a tough economic environment for the timber and building product supplies market.
In 2024, for the first time in several years, annual turnover at some of Bowens’ stores will be in line with, or even below, the previous year.
Prices for pine framing and engineered wood products have been under pressure.
“It is a bit slower in the back half of the year than it was at the start. Except for our truss plant in Brisbane. It’s all about Victoria. Victorian builders in the volume space are not selling enough homes. So we are feeling that,” he says.
“We look at a crucial number every month, which is those builders who are no longer in business that we were trading with a year ago. It is still a pretty significant number, even if the number of those in trouble has slowed.”
Bowens has always been self-funded and has never taken on a dollar of external capital.
Given his time in investment banking, you would think Andy Bowen would relish the opportunity to change that. But he is also a Bowen at heart.
“I worry when I look at the rest of the market and the industry, that the fabric of the business would be lost to capital investment that is external. We continue to reinvest as a family and that is the best thing for our business network,” he says proudly.
“We are growing at our own pace. To double in size in the next five years is not in our best interests. We are meeting the needs of our customers and our builders, and we are listening to them. That is the right pace for us and that does not require external investment.”
Andy has three young children, while John has four boys, the eldest being 22.
None of the latter have a role in the business and, for now, that is just the way John wants it.
“My sons I’d like to see work outside the company and be successful at something they enjoy,” he says.
“It doesn’t have to be aligned with what we are doing at Bowens at all. Just enjoy it and be good at it. Then we will look at what happens down the track.”
But the brothers are deeply conscious of the family’s century-old legacy. They want the next generation of Bowens to at least have the choice to follow in their footsteps.
“It means everything,” Andy says.
“I think we bear a huge responsibility to continue to make this a successful business and carry it forward to the fifth generation.”
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