Where to Buy a Garden Shredder: Homebase|B&Q|Argos|Screwfix|Aldi
At the Garden Shredder Review we believe that Amazon is a great place to buy a garden shredder. It’s worth considering the other major retailers such as: Homebase, B&Q, Argos, Screwfix and more. It’s also worth visting your local specialist garden centres – particularly if you want to get some informed help and advice.
Why Amazon?
If you have spent any time looking around this site, you will know that we are fans of buying Garden Shredders from Amazon. It’s not just that we are Amazon affiliates and will make a small commission if you buy a shredder through a link on our site. It is more that we think the range of options, price and customer service are do much better than you will find anywhere else.
See below for our perception of the pros and cons of buying a garden shredder from Amazon.
Why We Favour Amazon
We like Amazon because:
- There is a large range of models and manufacturers to chose from
- They usually have immediate availability
- Delivery, particularly if you are a prime customer, is fantastic. We have ordered at 10pm and had the shredder delivered before lunchtime the next day.
- Price – Amazon is normally the cheapest or matches other low prices
- Customer service – if you have a problem with an order you will get an immediate response from Amazon.
- Customer reviews. For us this is the biggie. There are a few reviewers that purchase products to review – Which being the most obvious. Nothing compares to getting the views of people who have purchased the shredder and post their experience of actually using the machine.
- International sites. We don’t purchase from none uk Amazon sites. We do, quite frequently, check out product reviews from other countries.
Click here to see the garden shredder bestsellers available now on Amazon.co.uk
Reasons to Not Buy From Amazon
There are, of course, disadvantages from buying from Amazon:
- You don’t get your hands on the goods before you purchase. There is nothing quite like handling the machines to give you a feel for the build and engineering quality
- You can’t take a shredder home with you after seeing it in store. Amazon does get pretty close though.
- There is not sales assistant to talk to about the shredder prior to purchase
- If something goes wrong you can’t take it back to the place of purchase (in UK law you contract is with the retailer that sold you the goods. It is not with the manufacturer. This can get blurred if you have faults outside of Amazon’s returns period. In this case you often end up dealing directly with the supplier or manufacturer
Other Places to Buy a Garden Shredder
So, buying from Amazon may not be for you. Where are other good places to buy your Garden Shredder?
You may be lucky and live close to a specialist garden centre that stocks garden shredders. If so, we heartily recommend you go along and talk to their staff about the Garden Shredder that is Right for you and your garden.
For the majority of the rest of us we are stuck with the major national chains. Increasingly this is becoming HomeBase and B&Q. We are going to take a look at the offerings from each of these. However, we are also going to take a look at the products on offer from a couple of less obvious suppliers: Argos and Screwfix.
Garden Shredders: Major Vendor Notes
Before looking at the range of machines on offer – we have on many occasions been into both Homebase and B&Q and attempted to engage staff in conversations about Garden Shredders. The experience has not been good. We have never actually spoken to anyone who owns or who has used a Garden Shredder. Just try asking for the difference between an impact and a quiet shredder and you will see just what we mean.
Knowing the difference between impact, quiet and turbine cut shredders is at the core of choosing a Garden Shredder that is right for you. Take a look at our article, cunningly titled “Difference Between Impact, Quiet and Turbine Cut Shredders,” if you are unclear.
Please remember, this article is a snapshot of the shredders listed on each vendors web sites. Not all are available in all stores. The range on offer will change over time.
Buy Garden Shredders: Homebase
At the time of writing, Homebase had 8 shredders available:
- Ozito 2400W Rapid Shredder (impact)
- Ozito 2600W Quiet Shredder (crusher) – was on clearance at time of writing. Exceptionally low price for a crusher shredder – £110
- Ryobi RSH2545B 2500W (impact)
- Sovereign 2400W (impact)
- Handy Impact Shredder
- Bosch AXT 2200 Rapid (impact)
- Qualcast Silent Shredder 2800W (crusher)
- Handy Petrol Drum Chipper Shredder
We have no knowledge of Ozito machines. Searching online we cannot find any reviews. We would be cautious about buying but the clearance deal on the Quiet model may be worth checking.
Ryobi is a credible manufacturer of garden tools. In the past, we included a review of the Ryobi RSH1545 on the Garden Shredder Review. As it is not longer available on Amazon we discontinued the review. It may be worth a look but doesn’t feature in any ‘best of’ reviews.
The Handy Impact Shredder is different. It was pipped to our best impact Shredder for 2019/2020 by the Bosch AXT Rapid 2200. We highly recommend the Handy.
The Handy Impact Shredde
The Bosch AXT Rapid 2200 is still our Impact Shredder of the Year.
Bosch AXT Rapid 2200
It is coming under every greater pressure from the likes of Handy and Dirty Pro Tools. We do caution you to check prices between Amazon and Homebase for Bosch Products. When we wrote this article Homebase listed the AXT Rapid at £200. It is currently Price not available on Amazon.
While we use a Qualcast lawnmower, we have no experience of the Qualcast Silent Shredder. We note that it was rated as an ‘avoid’ in a recent ‘Which Magazine’ review.
Buy Garden Shredders: B&Q
B&Q list 4 Garden Shredders:
- Ryobi RSH2545B 2500W (impact)
- Mac Allister MIS2500 2500W Impact Shredder
- Mac Allister MSHP2800D-2 2800W Silent Shredder
- Bosch AXT 25 TC Corded 230kg/hr 2500W Shredder
We commented on the Ryobi earlier.
The MacAllister Impact shredder gets poor reviews even on the B&Q web site. Interestingly, the MacAllister Silent Shredder gets OK reviews on B&Q but it gets great reviews on the ScrewFix site. More on this later.
What stands out for us is the the fabulous Bosch AXT 25TC. It’s the current Garden Shredder Review – Best Buy Garden Shredder.
The thing that really stands out is the price, B&Q has the AXT25TC listed at £360. It’s £519.95 on Amazon. Even we would buy this through B&Q.
Buy Garden Shredder: Argos
Argos may not be your obvious choice for buying a garden shredder. In many ways it is like buying from Amazon with all the issues and none of the benefits.
Nevertheless, Argos does have a range of Garden shredders on offer:
- Challenge Impact 2400W
- McGregor 2500W impact
- Spear and Jackson S28ES Quiet, Crusher shredder
All Argos Shredders get good reviews on Argos’s own web site. The Challenge Impact machine gets 4.1stars out of 5 from 102 reviews. The McGregor gets just under 4 stars from 77reviews. We can find little reference to either machine away from Argos’s site. They are both reasonably priced and could be worth a look.
The Spear and Jackson S28ES (that’s ‘Ess28’ if you try to search for it) Quiet Crusher Shredder catches our eye. It gets 4.6stars from over 170 reviews. With a 3 year warranty and costing just £150, we think the Spear and Jackson is worthy of consideration.
Buy Garden Shredder: Screwfix
For us, the biggest surprise in the whole list has been Screwfix. Screwfix list 7 Garden Shredders:
- Mac Allister MIS2500 2500W Impact Shredder
- Mac Allister MSHP2800D-2 2800W Silent Shredder
- Bosch AXT 25TC = Turbine Cut
- Oregon SH2200W Impact
- Mighty Mac LSC800EX Petrol Chipper Shredder
- Mighty Mac LSC1100EX Petrol Chipper Shredder
- Mighty Mac SC800EX Hammermill Petrol Chipper Shredder
The 2 Mac Allister machines are the same as those offered by B&Q. On the Screwfix site both of these Garden Shredders get a solid 4star rating. Prices look to be about the same between the 2 vendors.
The Bosch AXT 25TC – as we have already mentioned – the Garden Shredder Review’s Best Garden Shredder, needs no introduction. At Screwfix it would, at time of writing, cost you £460. Personally, I would head on over to B&Q pronto.
So far, we haven’t looked at Petrol Shredders on the Garden Shredder Review. That’s beginning to change as more of our visitors want flexible solutions to cope with large gardens. We will take a look at these Mighty Mac machines at that time.
By observation, we think the summary details for the Might Macs must be wrong. The 2 LSC machines differ by engine size – 205cc vs 249cc. That represents a big power difference. It cannot be right that both machines only deliver a 100kg/hr throughput.
Aldi for Garden Shredders
Aldi is one of the fastest growing retailers in the UK. One of the reasons that people shop at Aldi is the range of special offers that often have nothing to do with groceries. We have seen everything from tents and picnic table, to, you guessed it, garden shredders as special offers.
The really great thing about Aldi’s special offers is that they really are special. If you see a garden shredder on offer, you can bet you are going to get it for a great price.
Conclusion
Amazon is definitely not the only place from which you can buy your garden shredder. All of the vendors included in this article provide a reasonable range of machines from which to choose.
There is no insight to saying that you will be best served by shopping around. You may be able to find some good deals. Three deals stood out in this article:
- Bosch AXT 25TC for £360 from B&Q
- Spear and Jackson S28ES Quiet, Crusher shredder at £150 from Argos
- Mac Allister MSHP2800D-2 2800W Silent Shredder at £130 from both Screwfix and B&Q
There are a couple of deals to avoid too:
- Bosch AXT Rapid 2200 from B&Q at £200. We love the Bosch Rapid – just not at this price. Make sure you shop around
- Qualcast Silent Shredder 2800W (crusher) – all the reviews seem to rate this as a poorly performing machine
In many ways we would like more people to buy from their local garden centres. Sadly this doesn’t always work out in terms of price, convenience or availability.
Last update on 2024-11-21 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API