Home of Economy News

Friday, November 13, 2009

TNT—Dynamite

This was a very interesting product packaging innovation that we picked up this fall.  What this product actually is is fire starters that are roughly the size of a dynamite stick.  Well I’ve never seen a real stick of dynamite, but I’ve seen TV.

I don’t think you’d sell very many of them but his packaging just might do the trick.  Because after you’ve used all of the starters you’re able to use the box as a prop or to hold you shotgun shells when you go to the shooting range.

This is a great idea for Christmas. 

Winter Boot Headquarters

We do a fantastic job selling winter boots.  It seems that every year we’re selling more boots. 

It really seems that the boots are better quality and much cheaper than they used to be.

One thing I do with my boots, after I’m sure I’m going to keep them of course, is to line the back of the liner with some fine high quality duct tape*.  That keeps the back of the liner from wearing out while making it easier to slide your foot in and out.

We also sell a ton of these Peet boot dryers.  If you use your boots or other footwear a lot in the winter they are great to keep your feet dry.  Not only will your feet be dryer and more comfortable your footwear will last a lot longer when they are taken care of. 

*We can certainly help you out with all of your duct tape needs.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Get Your Sioux Gear Here At the Guarenteed Lowest Price

I’ll bet that a lot of folks aren’t aware that we have so much Sioux Gear for sale.  A lot of stores have a lot of the product, but only at H of E will you get the Guaranteed Lowest Price on the best Sioux Gear. 

We’ve still got some of the Nike Jerseys as well as the new Reebok Jerseys.  Get them now because when they’re gone they won’t ever be available again.

We’ve got these nifty Fighting Sioux Christmas wreaths as well some Sioux Logo Christmas Ornaments. 

Who took this picture?  They must have been humoring our Human Resources guy who’s known as the token Bison fan around here.  Don’t worry we’re nice to him.

These metal cutouts have been amazingly popular.  We had an hard time keeping up with them when we first brought them in. 

You can find our Sioux Gear right under the sign welcoming everyone to North Dakota.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

How To Get To Be Number One

This is my favorite commercial for a long time.  I really like how they led in with the phrase “How do you get to be number one.”  I know you’re not supposed to brag but if we don’t, I don’t think the competition is going to let everyone know that we’re the leader in Tires and Batteries in the Northland.

We’ve talked to a lot of people over the years, from suppliers to recyclers and yes, they all tell us we’re moving more product than anyone else. 

It’s a funny story how we started publicly claiming that we were number one.  A number of years ago Minot had a new tire dealer that was real aggressive with their advertising.  Their point was that they were working REAL HARD to become number one.  Well we couldn’t let that stand.  We had to point out that it was Home of Economy that WAS #1 and that we were working hard every day to keep that standing.

I also like the background video in this.  The landscape and truck is so typical of our market area that I think it’s going to be more effective than when the ad agency uses stock car video.  I had to even double check that it wasn’t my yard in the background because we have a pipeline in the neighborhood like in the video. 

I’m also glad that we’re highlighting pickup tires.  That’s a key part of of our market.  It’s a bit scary to do that because of course pickup tires cost more than car tires so you have to advertise an higher price point. 

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Storm Days Test

I was just doing this as a test to see if I could post to this website from my telephone. 

This winter if we have any storm days where we can’t open (or have to close early) I’ll post our decision here.  This is more for the employees than the consumers.  I want our people to have a place they can check anytime to see what’s going on.

Our storm policy basically leaves it up to the individual to make the determination if conditions are too dangerous for them.  Usually storm days the traffic is down so it doesn’t take many people to help the customers that do make it to work. 

Since we sell emergency supplies of all kinds we feel we need to be open.  We have dedicated team members so I’m pretty sure that if they can be here they will be here to help our customers. 

Toy Pages

Last weeks flyer had four pages of toys as well.  I thought I’d do these in a separate post.  We also have a Toy Flyer coming out this week.  So toy season is ON!

Toys are getting to be a tough business.  Not just for us, but for everyone.  It seems that kids are growing up faster and want some expensive electronics at an age when we would have been happy with a Tonka Truck.  I know that from personal experience.

The first page of our toy section is big in the horse and stable toys.  We still do a pretty good business in this category.  Breyer horses are something we’ve had since I was a kid.

Now we’re talking.  Toy tractors and trucks.  This is our biggest category.  We do a great job with the Ertl toys.  I think it’s funny how the implement dealers run a Christmas ad on their toys.  We’ve got it all at a much better price then they can offer.

More toys for boys.  For whatever reason it seems that the toys for boys sell much better for us than toys for girls.  It’s certainly not from a lack of trying to sell toys for girls. 

I think I want that crossbow set on the bottom. 

Monday, November 09, 2009

November Flyer

Here’s our latest and greatest flyer that just came out last week.  This flyer isn’t being produced by us so it is a bit different.  We have limited control on the product placement.  Still it’s not that we know everything so sometimes doing something different can teach you something.  This flyer ends the day before Thanksgiving. 

The front page as you can see announces this as a winter flyer.  Right now it looks like we’re a bit early for winter stuff, but in North Dakota you never really know.  Since this flyer has been weaker for us, it makes sense to run it before Thanksgiving when we know we’ll be busy one way or the other.

Still the front page has some real good items.  We’d have been putting Carhartt Extremes on the front and Science Diet as well.  That heated pet bowl is a fantastic item.  We sell hundreds of them every winter.  They work too. 

Dewalt’s a great line for us to.  We’re growing it 30% every year.  And the gun safes are HOT HOT HOT this year. 

Page has some nice items.  We’ve got a BB gun (be careful you don’t shoot your eye out) and a lot of work clothing.  We’ve also got some heaters which are nice for deer hunting time.  (Keep them around for ice fishing as well.)

A nice Carhartt page with some gloves and boots at the bottom.  That Kinco line has really done well for us without taking away from Wells Lamont. 

We’ve got a real nice pet page here.  This page is much like what we’d do ourselves.  While Science Diet continues to grow beyond any other brand we’re doing very well in Diamond, Iams, Nutro, Pedigree and the rest.  I’m told you’ve got to have a complete selection and not just focus in on one brand.

I’m skipping pages 5 thru 8 right now because they are all dedicated to toys. 

Here are some tools, including some more Dewalt. 

Here’s a page I think they underdid.  If we were doing it we’d have that more than that one Mr. Heater kerosene heater.  That’s an huge line for us.  The brand we’ve carried since I was growing up went out of business last year.  I think the Mr. Heaters are a great substitute but we’ve got to hit the advertising hard so we don’t miss a beat.

I really like the lineup of Tuthill pumps that they’ve got on this page.  We do amazingly well on that line. 

The backpage has tires and batteries.  I wish they had done more batteries on that page.  I had always thought that we had a real good market share on automotive batteries.  We started hitting the batteries in our advertising a bit harder and they really took off.  It seems that on batteries that you have to keep the top of mind awareness so that when the customers are ready to buy they already know where to go. 

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Apply Online

We’re finally seeing progress on our transition of our website from the dot biz site to the dot com.

Today we are transitioning our job applications over to the new dot com.  Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of job openings just now.  We’re hiring seasonal gift wrappers but that’s about it. 

But with the number of people we employ it’s not unlikely to have a new job open up tomorrow.  So go ahead and apply today at HomeofEconomy.com.

I used to do nearly all of the hiring in Grand Forks and I while I was skeptical of internet applications when they first were coming in, they really are a great tool for both the job seeker and the company doing the hiring.  I don’t do it anymore because they had to give me a job where I couldn’t cause a lot of trouble. 

Cold Weather Work Boots Nov 2009

Here’s a real nice commercial covering our winter work boots.  We’re trying to get more awareness that if you work outdoors in the winter and have to wear steel toed boots there are some options to help keep your feet warm. (Well wool socks help too).

The work boots we featured have some high quality insulation to keep your feet warmer than a summer boot.  But they also have water protection which is really important to keep you comfortable all day.

We also through in some traditional pack boots because we sell a lot of them too.  In Grand Forks I’ve been watching the shelves empty and get filled multiple times already.  We were talking about wanting to have some pack boots in a December flyer and our buyer was concerned about having enough to sell at that point. 

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Deer Hunting TV Ad

Deer season opens up this weekend in both North Dakota and Minnesota.  Here’s our ad to get those last minute shoppers in.

Best of luck to you and be safe.  I took my son out for youth season (got our deer up by Walhalla) and won’t be hunting in November. 

Monday, November 02, 2009

Carhartt Winter Gear Ad

Here’s a good ad pushing the Carhartt cold weather gear.  This is a bit early for using the Carhartt Extremes, but we want to put the idea into people’s heads that when it’s time to buy we’re the place to go. 

And it is a good time to buy.  Right now we are nearly 100% in stock with the different sizes.  We order the stuff every week, but if a large part of the country gets cold Carhartt gets overwhelmed with orders.

We can go deep on our pre-orders because it always gets cold here.  But even so with the explosive growth we’ve seen in recent years with our Carhartt gear we don’t know what size is going to take off on us.  All we can do is make orders and hope the factory can keep up with us. 

October Was a Great Month

It seems that Home of Economy rises and falls in an opposite direction than the national economy.  (That probably is true of much of North Dakota.)

Anyway October as a great month, it seems mostly because of the early winter weather we had early in the month.  I have to tell you that it’s a LOT more fun going to work when we’re on a good streak.

Carhartt led the way with a 30% plus sales increase.  Tires and Batteries also had awesome increases over 20%.  Anti Freeze sold great as well.

When we’re bringing people in for that stuff we do well all over.  We had a nice month from Science Diet pet food to Ariat western boots. 

Furniture did great as well.  We were up 30% in the all important Countryview Amish Furniture line. 

What makes this even better is that we’ve been putting together a lot of good Octobers in a row.  So when you have a strong month in comparison with a very strong month the year before you’ve got to be happy. 

Friday, October 30, 2009

More Flyer

Here’s the rest of the flyer that went out last week.  I’ve already posted the other parts of it.

We’ve got some hunting items because this is the time for the season.

You’ll see our new line of Mr. Heater Kerosene heater.  We had to change brands because our old supplier went out of business.  These look great but you never know how the public will accept a change. 

We’ve got a great buy on Science Diet on the front page as well. 

Page two is always clothing, has been for years, except for this flyer.  With the four pages of Carhartt inserted and the four pages dedicated to deer hunting something had to give.  We have some Carhartt items that weren’t in the flyer, but sell well this time of year.

Then we have a Dewalt box.  We’re getting great growth with the Dewalt line and want to feature it in as many flyers as possible. 

Page 7 is the animal health page.  We’ve even got more science diet. 

That Ivermax is one of our biggest selling products we sell.  A lot of it must go up to Canada because when the Canadian dollar dropped in relation to the US dollar last fall sales really slowed down.  Now the Canadian Dollar’s pretty strong so I hope we’ll sell the heck out of it during November and December. 

The last page is no surprise to people who watch for our flyers.  Tire and Batteries are our #2 and #3 lines.  (Carhartt’s number one in sales and in my heart).  But I love those two as well. 

Seafoam is a product that we sell the heck out of.  That price there is as low as the company will allow us to sell it. 

It’s surprising but we’re already selling a lot of the diesel fuel additives for the winter.  We’ve really grown that category the last couple years.  Wish we had been on the ball before.  We had a trucker in here last year that was blown away by our price when he compared us with the truck stops. 

Monday, October 26, 2009

Deer Hunting Flyer

Last week we dropped our late October flyer.  This flyer actually is in three parts.  The first is the regular items.  That’s on the front and back pages and the inside front and back cover.  The second is the Carhartt insert that I posted last Friday.

The last is a four page section that’s meant to be seen as almost a separate piece just for deer hunting.  A person can pull this section out if that’s the only thing their interested in.

That Under Armour on the right hand side is a great item for deer hunting.  It’s made to wick away the moisture to keep you dry so that you don’t get chilled after a hike, a run, or after you’ve drug something.  I don’t know exactly how they do it, maybe it’s magic.

We’ve also got a lot of the orange gear.  Deer hunting is very tough for us to buy for.  The temperatures can run from in the 20’s to in the 50’s.  If it’s cold we don’t have enough of the insulated stuff.  If it’s warm we have way too much that we can’t get rid of.  Carrying too much inventory is one of those things that can really hurt a retailer.

This page is big on the do it yourself butchering.  I’m just getting into deer hunting for my son’s sake.  (He got his deer during the September youth season.)  I had my deer processed, but it sure isn’t a way to save money on groceries by any means.  We’ve got all of the stuff you need to do your processing like meat grinders but on this and the last page.  We probably should have put that stuff together, but no flyer is perfect. 

We’ve got a real hodge podge of stuff on this page.  They’re all great items.

Here’s a bunch of the other meat processing gear.  We’ve also got the Blue Rhino propane tanks.  We’ve sold new filled propane tanks in Grand Forks for a long time, but we changed over to Blue Rhino to get it in all of the stores AND to be in the refill business.  It’s really gone well.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Carhartt Flyer

Here’s our latest Carhartt flyer which we inserted this week.  This flyer is produced by Carhartt so it’s not done just how I’d do it if we were paying for it.  Still they’re paying the bills so I guess we’ll live with it.

If it were up to me I’d start off with the Carhartt Extreme winter wear on the front page of this flyer.  They don’t even include it.  That’s the difference between producing an ad for the entire country OR producing one just for North Dakota customers.  People up here know that they’ll need it sooner than later.  Our cold snap and snow earlier in the month resulted in us selling in three weeks this year what we sold in all of October last year.

Not that these aren’t great fall items.  That’s a great work jacket and you won’t get a better price on a great jean than the two for offer as well.  I’ve got to check them out because I like pants with the cell phone pockets.  I knew those were coming but haven’t looked them over yet. 

In my opinion page two is wasting some space.  I don’t think the picture of the lady working on a tree is going to sell anything.  Now, it’s a good thing to have a lady model because that reinforces that we have Carhartt sized for women. 

I don’t think that many people are aware that our Grand Forks store was one of the original test markets for Carhartt women’s clothing.

We’ve got some Carhartt footware on page 3.  I wish they had more because we sell the heck out of that line.  It’s come out of nowhere in the last couple years to become one of our largest work boot lines.  Those Carhartt Work Dungaree’s are starting to sell pretty well.  I think they’ll actually outlast jeans for a person that works hard in them. 

The back page has some great items.  I like those long sleeve t-shirts. 

I like the two products on the bottom right.  We’ve got horses, well, my wife and daughter have horses.  They already wear Carhartt work jackets for wearing around the barn and on the horses.  I think that Sherpa lined jacket would be pretty popular around the barn as would be those flannel lined jeans.