Home of Economy News

Friday, May 29, 2009

Friday’s Special

Today’s special is $5 off of any purchase of $25 or more.

This has a limit of one per person. 

Hope you have a great weekend.

Dewalt Wrap

Yesterday I highlighted the Farnam “wrap” that was included with our flyer that we inserted in most of the local publications on Wednesday.  This flyer was very unusual because it included not one but two wraps.

The second was a piece produced by Dewalt Power tools.  We’ve carried DeWalt since they introduced their line of high quality power tools.  We’ve always done ok with it, but we’ve found that giving a bit more attention to advertising and floor displays has really helped us sell their tools. 

We’ve improved how we’re doing with them quite a bit and we’re are seeing the results.  Our sales are up 25% over the first five months last year. 

Of course there’s still room for us to improve.  That’s the beauty of retail.  There’s always something you can do better on.  Everyday is a great day to come to work for that reason. 

Of course Home of Economy offers the Guaranteed Lowest Price on DeWalt tools.  That’s making us more of a destination all the time even though you can buy DeWalt in a number of places. 

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Farnam Wrap Included in the Mid States Flyer

Yesterday we put out the Mid States Summer Flyer.  That flyer also contained this “wrap” produced and paid for by the Farnam company.  Farham makes a ton of animal care products. 

Horse care is the number one item we sell from Farnam.  We sell a lot of sprays to repel flies and mosquitoes from horses.  I started learning about horses 12 years ago when I met my wife who has pretty much always been around horses.  I was surprised to learn how much trouble horses have with common flies and even mosquitoes.  They can really make them miserable.

We’ve also got bio spot from Farnam which is a very affordable long lasting control for wood ticks on your dog and cats.  I would never go without having treated our dogs for ticks anymore.  It’s made the early summer a LOT more pleasant.

We also get our fly traps from Farnam.  If you live on a farm you’ve got to have these to control the dang things.

This is a coupon based sale.  Don’t worry you can pick up a flyer in the store to take advantage of them.  Just in case you can’t make them out the coupons cover.

Ivermectin paste. 
Fly masks.
Equisect fly repellent.
Just one bit mouse poison.
Weight builder for horses.
Endure Sweat resistant fly spray.
Bio Spot for Dogs and Cats.
D-Worm tablets for tapeworm.
Stable fly trap or ez trap.
Adams plus flea and tick collar.
Golden Malrim
And Fly Traps.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The “Mid States” Summer Flyer is Out and In the Stores

The “Mid States” Summer Flyer is out.  Most of our flyers and other advertising we produce in house.  However our buying group, Mid States Distributing do produce a few flyers that we’ve found very strong for us.  The benefit to us is that we don’t have to pay for the printing, just the insertion in the publications.

We don’t control where everything goes in the flyer but we can add in a limited number of items.  We find that to be a good thing because sometimes an item we’re forced to carry turns out to be a real winner for us.

We’ve got plenty of extra copies of the flyer in the store.  So if you don’t get it you can pick it up in the store.

Page one is focusing on animals and pets. 

Page two we have lawn and garden, grills and bird feeding.  We are doing great in all three categories.

Page three we have horse and animal food, dog food and some animal care products.

On Page four we have Jeans and boots, categories that all Mid States members (including ourselves I hope) excel in.

Page five is devoted to tools and home improvement items.  We’ve got some pumps and shopvacs in here.  Hopefully we don’t have any big summer rainstorms, but if we do we’re ready to help you with sale pricing on emergency goods. 

One page 6 we have a selection of ag items.  One category of note is the gasoline service pumps from Tuthill.  That’s become one of our top ten vendors.  We keep selling more and more of them every year. 

Page 7 has a very nice selection of Ertl farm toys.  Ertl is a great line.  We’re known far and wide for having the best selection of toy tractors in all of our markets.

Finally we’re to page 8.  Like most all of our flyers we’ve got tires and batteries covered here.  We’ve also got a nice selection of Science Diet dog and cat food on this page as well.  This is a good back page because Tires, Batteries, Science Diet, Wolverine Boots and DeWalt tools are all on our list of top 15 vendors by sales volume. 

Monday, May 25, 2009

We Are Number One In Weber Grills

Several times a month we sit around and brainstorm on lines that we aren’t doing as well as we should with.  One of these meetings got us thinking about our grill business.  We’ve always sold them but I’ve never been happy with how we’ve done it.  I haven’t been happy with our sales either.

We sell the best, most known grill in the market, Weber Grills.  We’ve sold them since forever.  But we weren’t doing it right.  Weber is stronger than ever for us because the big box stores are having their own grills made over in China for them.  They’ve dropped the name brand in order to boost their margins.  I suppose that works for a lot of people, but there’s plenty of customers that want the quality they know they get with Weber.

Since then we’ve really upgraded our displays.  We’ve got the point of sale signage to make it work.  The picture above is Grand Forks but we should have the same basic set up in all of the stores (except we’re working on Jamestown maybe even getting it done this week.)

We’re also working on having the grill accessories including sauces that you want on hand. 

So far our new focus on grills seems to be working.  For the year we’re up 130%.  I think if the spring hadn’t been so poor we’d be a lot further than this. 

One interesting thing the old timers told me.  Back before propane grills grew to dominate we used to be running down to Kingsford’s charcoal factory with two trucks at a time. 

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Home of Economy’s Guarenteed Lowest Price

If you happen to find a lower price at a competitor we’ll match their price.  We will match their price whether or not it’s advertised.  If available bring their ad in with you.

1. The item must be exactly the same item with the same features.  Some of our competitors sell a cut down item that looks just like our full-featured product.
2. The item must be in stock at the competitor.  Some retailers use an item as a loss leader but don’t stock enough to satisfy demand.
3. The competitor must be in our trade area. 
4. We will match Internet prices (including shipping).  In nearly all cases we’re already lower-priced than the “discount” on-line retailers.  In the case of an on-line price match print the ordering page with the shipping information, bring it in and leave with the product.  No wait and you get Home of Economy’s great service after the sale.
5. We reserve the right to limit quantities.
6. We do not match competitors’ gimmick sales, free goods, closeout prices, rebates, and financing options.

Home of Economy, your local store for Price, Service, Selection, and Quality.

The above is the rules that we put out explaining the our Guaranteed Lowest Price program.  Basically it’s a price match policy. 

We’ve found this to be enormously successful to regain our image as a low priced store.  Many don’t know that Home of Economy was one of the first discounters in the country.  In fact we are THE FIRST store to offer low prices direct to the farmer.  At the time “Fair Trade” laws prohibited a company from offering discount prices.  (Is that crazy or what?)  My grandfather figured out a way to offer fleet discounts to farmers and stay within the law.

Over time we didn’t protect our position in the public’s minds as being a low priced store.  We instituted this program about five years ago to regain it.

Occasionally in meetings we’ll discuss the rare instances where a customer asks for the lower price they can get elsewhere.  Often the customer is mistaken because the items aren’t the same or the competitor is advertising in an unethical manner.  One example of that is when they advertise an item at a very low price knowing they’ll run out of the product.  We all run out of sale items; but we do what we can to minimize that as much as possible. 

The other thing we find is that consumers are misled by other retailers asking manufacturers to cheapen their product.  We’ll be selling the product the customers want and look bad when the other guys are offering a similar but inferior product.  This gives us the chance to explain what the differences are in the product and justify the price differential.

The bottom line is that we are happy as heck to deliver the Guaranteed Lowest Price.  We sure don’t want to send OUR customers elsewhere to do their shopping. 

That doesn’t mean that we don’t have to check what’s going in the other stores when someone asks.  We have to make sure that we aren’t being taken advantage of. 

Friday, May 22, 2009

Introducing the Friday Super Saver!

I’m excited to introduce a new feature of Home of Economy News.  We are beginning to offer a GREAT deal on this site to reward our readers.

This weeks special is a $5 off any pair of jeans.  We do a great job at jeans with Carhartt, Wrangler, Lee, Levi and more.  They are all offered the Guaranteed Lowest Price.

It’s our intention to have a special (or specials) every week to build our traffic. 

Print out the coupon and bring it in and save big on the best selection of the best brands of jeans.  One per customer please. 

To print out use the print feature in your web browser.  I’d recommend you chose to print only page 1. 

Memorial Day Furniture Sale

I posted the Memorial Weekend Furniture Sale on Wednesday.  Today the flyer for the weekend came out in the Grand Forks Herald.

I’ve got all four pages blown up here so you can see it. 

As you can see it’s a pretty good sale.  We’re featuring the Amish made furniture like always.  This line has really taken off for us.  Right now it’s about 30% of our entire furniture business.  I’m thinking that it will be at least half of our business within a couple years.

On the back page we have Homecrest Furniture.  Unfortunately we’re sold out of that red checked piece and can’t get anymore.  Even though that’s been our best seller for the last two years Homecrest doesn’t have it available anymore.  We’re really unhappy with that because it really brightened up the department.

Also on the back page we have Restonic mattresses.  We’re having a very good year in mattresses this year because we’ve been a bit more aggressive about pointing out our advantages of price, quality and expertise in the store.

We’ve only got one upholstered recliner from Lane furniture in the flyer, but our entire department including all upholstered furniture is on sale for the weekend.  Lane is the top brand when it comes to reclining furniture for a reason.  They have very good quality and it’s priced right as well. 

I suppose some might wonder why we started advertising on TV two days before the flyer was dropped.  That’s because TV advertising takes a while to gain awareness with most people.  People don’t act the first time they see a commercial.  On the other hand a printed flyer is most effective the day a person sees it.  If they set it down until “next week” they might not do anything with it at all. 

And of course running the television creates some interest when a customer sees our flyer in the paper. 

Trailers For Sale Not Rent

Our new trailer ad is out.  I hope you appreciate the most excellent driving job by the guy in the Red Pickup. 

Trailers are one of our “Power Categories.”  That’s what we call categories that we are a destination store for.  We haven’t really sold trailers for all that long, but we must be the leader in utility trailer sales.  It seems that the only thing keeping us from selling more is that we can’t get them in fast enough.  On the other hand when we tried covered trailers we thought we were doing it right, but they never caught on for us.

Carry-on trailers that makes most of our utility trailers is the 9th biggest vendor we have right now.  For the last 12 months we’ve seen growth of 13% with them which is great.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Fishing Ad Featuring Marine Batteries

We were sitting around in a meeting a couple weeks ago somewhat dissatisfied with our focus in fishing advertising.  You can advertise lures and bring some people in but they really don’t generate a lot of dollar sales.  Of course store traffic is always good but we thought we could do better.

What we decided is that what makes us a different kind of fishing store is that we offer a lot more than just tackle.  First of all the number one traffic item for the fishing department is bait.  We do a great job with bait, (minnows, leaches and worms) in Grand Forks and Devils Lake.  Minot is soon to get a minnow tank in addition to the leaches and worms they sell.  The other stores sell bait.

What makes us different of course is that we don’t get cheap with the minnow scoop.  We dig in and get you a full scoop.

We also sell a LOT of marine batteries, both deep cycle for your trolling motor and marine starting batteries.  It’s not a bad idea to replace a deep cycle battery that you’ve gotten two seasons out of.  Also the worst thing to happen is have your boat not start because the battery is dead.

We do a great job with batteries which includes all kinds of specialty batteries like for your boat.  We also think that running batteries (which we’re known to be the leader in) we might get fisherman checking out our expanded tackle in our branch stores that haven’t always been strong in fishing.

We also are big in trailering supplies which is a big part of the fishing scene.  Here we feature a light kit for your boat trailer but we have all of the stuff you’ll need like receiver hitches, balls and other wiring stuff.

Finally we are featuring reals in the ad.  I think we’re pretty unusual in that our fishing ad doesn’t hit tackle well, but this may turn out to be the best TV ad we’ve ever run. 

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Ten PLUS Ten Memorial Weekend Furniture Sale

Memorial weekend is a big weekend in the furniture business.  I think last year was the first year we did a Home Furnishings Memorial Day sale right.  We’ve got this ad and a flyer coming out on Friday in the Grand Forks Herald. 

Right now Homecrest lawn furniture is HOT.  This is the line of American made lawn furniture that’s made to last.  This would be a great time to upgrade your outdoor furniture on your patio or your lake cabin. 

The other thing that’s going great is our line of Amish made furniture.  The leader of this is Countrywide Furniture who make most of our Amish wood furniture.  We have a great line of Amish upholstered furniture made by Smith Brothers who make their stuff to last as well.

This is a four day sale.  It goes from this Friday until Memorial Day.  (The 22nd to the 25th).  Our hours for the weekend are Friday: 8-8; Saturday 8-6; Sunday Noon to 5; and Monday we have special Memorial Day hours 9-5!

We’ll see you this weekend. 

Home of Economy’s Summer Holiday Hours

Grand Forks

Memorial Day:  9am to 5 pm
Independence Day: July 4th, 10am-4pm
Labor Day: 10am to 5pm

Grafton, Minot and Williston

Memorial Day:  10am to 4pm
Independence Day: July 4th:  Closed
Labor Day:  10am to 4pm

Jamestown

Memorial Day:  9 am to 3 pm.
Independence Day:  Closed.

Devils Lake

Memorial Day:  8 am to 2 pm.
Independence Day:  Closed.
Labor Day:  8am to 2 pm. 

We are fairly unusual in our approach to setting store hours.  We believe that the store managers need to be involved in what’s important for their store.  Our stores are in different markets, are strong in different areas and have their own personalities.  We need to tailor our offerings to what’s important to the consumers in the town that we’re in while balancing the family needs of our team members. 

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

New Cahartt Jeans and Shirts Ad

This is our new Carhartt Jeans and Shirts Ad.  I think they did a nice job with it.  It’s too bad that we can’t cover the variety of products that we get from Carhartt.

It used to be that Carhartt was known for the great outdoor work jackets, bibs and coveralls.  That’s perfect for us being in North Dakota.  If it’s cold it’s obvious you need the best cold weather gear.  But if we have a warm winter a person spends a lot more time outdoors so you still need the Carhartt stuff.  In a lot of places not that far South you can’t sell this stuff in a warm winter because it’s just too good.  With more crews going 12 months a year we’re seeing great growth in this outdoors stuff.

What’s really exciting though is that the first layer has now surpassed the insulated Carhartt.  That means we can sell it 12 months of the year.  Working people love the durability of the canvas work pants and the t-shirts (we sell a ton of those.) 

Their jeans are growing every year as well.  They just plain fit nice.  They’re durable. 

I think a person wears the Jeans that fits their personal view of themselves.  Carhartt is known for quality, not the latest fashion.  It’s also something that isn’t cheap, but it isn’t overpriced as well.  I think a lot of guys see themselves in that way as well.

Anyway, Home of Economy is by far North Dakota’s #1 Carhartt dealer.  We’re looking at overtaking a few other states as well. 

Monday, May 18, 2009

Dare Electric Fencing

I think this is a really interesting line.  There’s nothing fancy about it, it’s mostly electric fence accessories.  A lot of it is very generic like fence handles and plastic insulators.

What’s interesting is that last year we switch vendors and are now selling a product from Dare Manufacturing.  This stuff is nice, but we have horses and I’ve used both products.  I don’t see that the new line is better than the old.

So I’m shocked that we’ve more than doubled sales.  We’re actually at 233% of the prior years sales. 

I looked at this line that a customer wasn’t shopping for a brand or features, but they were shopping at their favorite store.  I didn’t think making a change was going to make a big difference in sales. 

But it certainly did. 

The big advantage of Dare is that they came with a lot nicer displays and signage.  Again, I thought (and was wrong like usual) that the customer that knows this product knew what they needed and didn’t need a bunch of informational signs.

This really teaches me a lesson that I should have learned before.  Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference in the retail game. 

Friday, May 15, 2009

Motorcycle, ATV Batteries at the Guarenteed Lowest Price!

A lot of people are bringing their toys out of the garage and getting them ready.  Unfortunately sitting around in winter seems to be real tough on the smaller batteries in your motorcycle or ATV.  (Snowmobiles too, but despite what it feels like I don’t think that we’ll be needing them for a few months.

Home of Economy does a great job on these smaller specialty batteries.  We’ve got the most popular sizes and we offer a great price on them as well. 

Check us out, I’m sure we’ll save you money.