The popular general hardware store is a small business victim crushed by retail giants, says owner Peter Webb.

Director and owner of the business for the last 23 years, Mr Webb told the Lakes Mail this week that the closure was sad but a fact of life.

He said that despite a very loyal customer base, he could no longer survive.

Mr Webb, who bought the business founded in the early 1960s by Merv Myers as Macquarie Softwoods, said he had tried to sell the company as a going concern.

"The fact is nobody in their right mind is going to buy a small independent hardware business with Bunnings and now Woolworths on your doorstep as competitors. It's not something that is peculiar to just our industry, either. The area has lost a lot of small businesses for the same reason," Mr Webb said.

A former accountant, Mr Webb said the 900-square-metre warehouse and showroom and the 1400-square-metre block it stands on is up for sale.

"It would have been great to sell it as a going concern but all I can do now is to sell off what stock I have left and go and get a job," he said.

"I am sorry to close a business that has served the local community so well for all these years. We have had a terrific following of loyal customers with many of them becoming more friends than customers but the sad truth is I don't see that there is any place for small business in the modern world, anymore.

"Legislation and government controls like Workcover make constant big demands which every small businessman has to accommodate. It's just getting more and more difficult and we can't cope with the growing paperwork and regulations and monopolising competition," he said.

"Soon, small business will be a thing of the past, there just won't be any."