March | 2025 | Tony Bryer

During my life retail has seen numerous changes: the growth of supermarkets and retail chains, big box discount stores, IKEA, online shopping and more. New to Australia is South Africa-based Panda Mart. They opened their first Australian warehouse outlet in Cranbourne, an outer suburb, 43km (27mi) SE of the Melbourne CBD on February 27th, the occasion being marked by huge crowds necessitating additional security and police attendance.

The store, housed in what was a Masters DIY shed until its closure in 2016, has been described as a bricks-and-mortar Temu. Out of curiosity rather than needing anything, I decided to take a look. A healthy 25-minute walk from Merinda Park station got my step count up to target – not that I need have worried. From outside, the store is a totally unprepossessing sight though press reports say that a large panda mural will shortly adorn the fascia.

Inside it is huge! I walked nearly every aisle, skipping multiple rows of partyware, toys and petware . This took me a full hour, 2,265 steps!

What’s on offer? Think of a mega-size $2/pound shop but much cheaper. No clothes, no food, but you will find furniture. Lots of hardware and tools, housewares, stationery, craft supplies, artificial flowers and much more. They claim to stock 28,000 products. The pricing was, as promised, extraordinary. The base price seems to be 40c (25c US, 20p UK), though the cheapest paintbrushes were 30c.

Having initially decided to buy nothing, just look, I did succumb. My $11.60 spend bought me a premium quality paintbrush (hopefully, yet to be tested), $3.20, a spanner, $1.90, and a LED worklight, $6.50. I bought the last since the pack stated it took 3xAAA batteries and I have (not sure why) a box of 25 looking to be used. Bad news: on opening it up, it actually takes AA batteries – I had to buy some!

Conclusions:

Good: Vast selection of merchandise at unbelievable prices.
Good: See before you buy and no waiting for a mail order package
Good: Unlike Temu you won’t get spammed and there are minimal privacy issues
Bad: For some things, product quality is uncertain. In the first week, Consumer Affairs (Trading Standards) seized lots of merchandise that didn’t meet Australian standards including toys with insecure button batteries and dangerous electrical goods. There’s no excuse for this: they should know what standards apply and have already had multiple product recalls in New Zealand, whose standards are probably very similar to ours. They had lots of cordless power tools: would I trust their chargers and batteries? No. But this will probably change: when I was a child ‘Made in Japan’ was synonymous with junk.
Bad: As with all goods whose prices are too low to believe, you have to wonder about the working conditions and pay of those in the supply chain. That said, how many higher priced products are made in sweatshop conditions with those down the line creaming off the extra.
Threatened?: If Panda Mart builds a large branch chain it’s possibly bad news for Temu, AliExpress and the like, also all the $2 shops, Daiso etc. As I write this, Canadian Dollarama has just bid a generous A$259m for the Australian Reject Shop chain, with the intention of expanding from 390 to 700 stores by 2034, so they obviously think they have nothing to worry about. Kmart should be OK: they’ve worked hard to establish a good reputation for their Anko-branded goods and appliances. Time will tell.