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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Pump Dislpays

Every week we have a conference call with our store managers.  Yesterday I asked the store managers how many of them have been getting rain.  Everyone told me that it had been raining.

I heard yesterday was the record for precipitation for Grand Forks.

None of this looks good for the spring flood.  We’re doing what we can to be ready to help our customers.  We actually take quite a bit of pride in being here when there is an emergency. 

During our conference call we discussed on things to work on for the following week.  All of the store managers were committed to getting our flood preparation stuff out in prominent spots.  The two areas they were specifically concerned with were rubber knee boots and Wayne pumps.

I shot a couple pictures of the Grand Forks displays of pumps and the Minot store manager posted a picture of his endcap right when you come in the door.

These two are in the Grand Forks store.  The top is a pallet display by the South door.  The other one is an endcap back where we always have pumps. 

This is the Minot endcap.  This should be our top producing endcap.  It’s right when a customer walks into the store.  The idea is to firmly place in the customers’ minds that we are the place to go for pumps.  We keep the pumps on sale for the entire flood season every year.  That way the public knows that we’re doing what we can to help them get through this. 

This is a picture of a five and an half Pacer pump.  It has two inch input and output.  It moves a ton of water for sure.  The engine is Briggs and Stratton’s high quality Intek commercial grade engine.  These are a great buy at $249.99. 

I see we’ve been able to keep the price on that Pacer pump that low for long enough for the sign to get very shabby.  That’s a good thing for the consumer.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The Science Diet $7 Rebate Is Still On

Our last flyer had a $7 rebate on Science Diet.  The flyer is over but the rebate is good until the end of March. 

If you want to try out the best pet food for your pet’s health, it’s the perfect time to start.  I feed Science Diet to our dogs and we’re very happy with the results.

A year ago we had a tour of the Science Diet research center and their canned food facility and we were extremely impressed with the science diet commitment to providing the best nutrition for your pets.  I wrote up my impressions at the time.

http://homeofeconomy.net/site/science_diet_pet_nutrician_center_tour/

One of the things that we learned about was about the Science Diet Light dog food.  “Light” or “Lite” on a pet food is a legal definition.  There’s a certain number of calories per volume they must be under.  Most weight control products sold for pets can’t meet this standard so they can’t use the word “light” to describe their product. 

We put our big dogs on the light product a year ago.  During that time our Golden Retriever lost a lot of weight.  He’s getting up there in years and it was gratifying that he could climb the stairs again after he lost a few pounds. 

Maybe I should switch to that as well. 

Monday, March 08, 2010

Our Flood Ad

This year we’re doing a flood ad to get that top of mind awareness to the public that we are the place to go.  The first thing we want is for the customers to know that we’re going to be in stock on Wayne pumps and we’ll have the extra stuff. 

Wayne is a great line.  When there’s a flooding event we get a lot of people in here that I don’t normally see buying pumps.  To me that means that they’re coming here because they trust the Wayne name to protect their most valuable physical asset. 

The other idea we wanted to get across is that we are honoring our guaranteed lowest price program on our flood stuff.  It seems that when there’s an emergency situation that some…well nuts come out of the woodwork and accuse everyone of raising prices.  I don’t think anyone in towns been doing that, and I know we haven’t.  But people get a bit worried, so I thought we’d let them know that we’re going to be the place to get their flood stuff at the best price when they need a pump.

One example of what we did last year was we had to buy some suction hose from a different source.  We couldn’t get our regular product and the new source was a lot higher.  Rather than create any idea that we were unfairly raising prices we ate the increase.  I think that any business would seriously look at doing that if they were able because you don’t want to give anyone a legitimate concern that you aren’t be fair with them. 

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Wrangler Snowmobile Ad

This ad I think does a really good job of grabbing the viewers attention.  I have to admit that there are maybe a few around here that don’t like it.  True, it’s a bit strange.  What is that guy doing shoveling out in the middle of no-where, why is the girl carrying around a shovel on her snowmobile….

I think you need to engage the consumer in your advertising rather than just blaring out how great you are, blah blah blah.  Who listens?

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

We’re Ready for Flood Business

I was walking in the back yesterday and noticed that our buyer has really stocked up on suction hose to get ready for the flood.  There’s a lot of stuff besides pumps that need to be brought in in case the flooding is as bad as they’re predicting.

Not only is there the various sundries related to pumps and handling water we have to worry about having things like knee boots in stock.  We take a lot of pride in being here for our customers.  We’re not perfect, but I think we’re better than any of our competition.

This picture reminds me of 1997.  During the week that Grand Forks was all but off limits I had to run down to Fargo in our furniture truck to pick up all of the suction hose and fittings I could get.  I went to Dakota Hose in Fargo and Pleasure Land in Moorhead.  I pretty much cleaned them all out of 2 inch fittings.

I-29 by Harwood had just been opened again.  There wasn’t any traffic, but it was spooky driving on the narrow strip of highway sticking out from the river.  I didn’t really have that much weight on, but if felt like the road was mush and was trying to pull me into the ditches.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Jamestown Inventory In the Peoples Choice Best Hardware Store

We’re in Jamestown today doing inventory.  We all got here around 3 pm.  I’m excited because this is the last inventory of the season.

The store looks really good, so I expect that we’ll be done in pretty good time tomorrow.  Still we’ll have to be close on Wednesday.

I had a nice surprise when I got here today.  Robert had the plaque hanging below.  Apparently the Jamestown Sun has a readers’ choice awards for a bunch of categories.  We got the award for best hardware store last December. 

You don’t get an award like that without some good people on the scene to earn the publics affection. 

Monday, February 15, 2010

Get Your Drain Plugs Today

This may not be the most exciting post ever, but I think it’s important anyway.  When we have big flood events one of the first things we run out of is drain plugs.  In a normal year these don’t sell at all.  But in a flood year they sell like crazy.

The problem is that if we stocked up for a big year we could be holding these for years.  You can’t make money in retail having years worth of inventory. 

When it comes to pumps and hose and fittings we can fill in almost right away.  Last year we didn’t run out at all in those areas even though sales were several times what we normally sell. 

But for some reason when drain plugs are in demand you can’t get them.  Not from the distributor, not from the factory, not from anyone.

These don’t cost a lot, but when you need them you need them.  They don’t take any room and they don’t go bad.  If you don’t have them I’d highly recommend that you buy enough to take care of your problem drains and put them someplace that they won’t get misplaced. 

You might not need them this spring, but problems always come unexpectedly in the middle of the night.  This is one area you want to invest a couple buck so that you don’t have a nasty expensive mess later on. 

Plus if you buy them now while we can restock you won’t be taking a plug from someone who hasn’t planned ahead and is in dire need. 

Friday, February 12, 2010

Don’t Miss the President’s Day Furniture Sale

Here’s our President’s Day Furniture Sale Television Ad.  The President’s Day weekend is one of the top furniture sales events of the year.

I’m sure that all of our competition will have it as well.  But we have something they don’t have and never will.  We are the upper midwest’s leader in Authentic Amish Furniture. 

Also we have the 200% low price guarantee in the furniture department   Take that Big Furniture Chains!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Grafton Inventory

Well we’re up here in Grafton for their inventory.  We’ll work until about 10:30 tonight and then drive home.  The Grafton store will be closed on Friday.

The store looks real nice so I expect that we’ll get out of here in pretty good time tomorrow.  Hopefully I’ll be home by the time the Sioux Hockey game is going on.

I’m sure glad that we have this new store up here.  The old store we moved out of in 2006 was a real pain to count.  Everything was so jammed in that it was next to impossible to get a good count. 

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Monday Came On Sunday This Week

Ugh. 

Monday, February 08, 2010

Bigger Clothing Department In Williston

Barb and her crew have been busy in Williston.  They’ve had the old clothing back room ripped out so that we can have more product on the floor.  This first picture gives you a good idea of how much room we gained on the sales floor.  It’s the wall on the right that got taken out. 

This is a picture of the new clothing counter and the new changing rooms.  The door on the left is the source of the light in the first picture. 

It seems that it used to be more important to us to have a good warehouse than to have a good salesfloor.  When you think about it that doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Nothing sells by itself out of the warehouse. 

We’ve done a lot of work over the years to move out the walls and have the product out so the busy customer can get what they want.  We were out there a couple weeks ago.  While the project wasn’t done the department was already much better displayed because of the extra room. 

Williston is probably our best store for clothing.  I think we just made it that much better. 

(For a minute I took that poster in the bottom picture as a real construction worker.)

Friday, February 05, 2010

Yes I’m Still Here

I know I haven’t been good at updating this site.  The problem with inventory season is that you’re working extra hours and getting further behind while you’re doing it. 

Our last inventory in Williston was certainly a challenge.  It’s always the one we dread just because of the extra travel.  Well in this case we got pushed back a day because of the storm.  We lost our hotel rooms for the night after the inventory. 

We tried to rent a bus so that if we ran late we wouldn’t be trying to drive home while we’re in no condition to.  The bus company had problems and that didn’t work.

We scrambled around and got going Tuesday morning.  That means we we were late starting on Tuesday evening.  Rather than start at 2pm it was around 5:30 when we got going.  Then after dinner we had computer problems.  By the time we got that fixed we were really behind.

Then something great happened.  We had a great crew and the Williston team had done such a good job preparing that the inventory flew by.  Some of us got home before Midnight even, which isn’t bad. 

Monday, January 25, 2010

Inventory On For Williston?

We’re going to try to get out and do the inventory in Williston tomorrow and Wednesday.

With the oil boom out in Williston it’s very hard to get hotel rooms.  Monday and Tuesday nights were the only ones we could get.  Since we didn’t get our their our controller had an idea to charter a bus so that we can have someone rested drive us home Wednesday night after inventory.  That way we won’t need to stay the second night. 

Sounds like a good idea.  Here’s hoping we can get out in the morning and the roads are good. 

Williston Inventory Has Been Postponed Due to Weather

Well the weekend blizzard finally hit on Monday.  There’s no way we can send people out of town in this storm so we’re postponing it for now. 

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

And Now to Devils Lake

We’re soon off to Devils Lake to count all of their stuff.  This should be an easier inventory than the Minot and Grand Forks inventory.  Not that those went too badly, but Devils Lake has less stuff than the other two and their backroom is almost negligible.

Our Schedule is to leave for Devils Lake from Grand Forks right after lunch.  We’ll close the store at 3pm and count until 11 pm or so.  Any later and we start making a lot of mistakes.  But every hour we work late on the first night means we’re home that much earlier the next.

This is also one of the stores close to Grand Forks and in the middle of Grand Forks, Minot, Jamestown and Grafton so it’s easy for everyone to get there.  We’ve started using the meeting room at the Devils Lake Casino to hold some vendor meetings because it is so convenient.

The problem with doing so many inventories is two fold.  First of all you get wore down while your regular work piles up.  The other thing is that there’s a lot of work fixing discrepancies after the inventory when you have two or three inventories.  We’re almost ready to close Minot, we’ve just started working on the Grand Forks reports and we’re off to do Devils Lake. 

It’s important to work the after inventory reports.  We cut the discrepancy in Minot 70% after the inventory.  Right now it looks pretty good.