Home of Economy News

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Grand Forks Greenhouse is OPEN

With the cold and rainy spring (I’m sure it’ll turn around soon) we haven’t been setting any records but our greenhouse is open.

Once again our flowers and other live plants look great.

We can’t seem to sell any trees except for apple trees.  We do very good with them.  I planted some apple tress from here a few years ago and within a few years I had more apples than I (and the rest of the family could use.)

So we’ve got some specials going on 4-packs.  Here’s some of the marigolds that are on sale for that price.

We do have some shrubs and evergreens.  I’m going to buy a few of those spruce trees.

You can see that our extra-large-jumbo greenhouse is full of plants.  We expect that once the weather turns that we’ll have a very short selling window.  While we have plenty you might want to do your shopping before the run starts.

Our customers have told us for years that we have the nicest plants in town.  We buy from the best regional suppliers so that we have the products that are fitted for our short growing season.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Home of Economy Sales Report

I’m asked around town how sales are.  We’re all hearing that sales are plunging across the country and that the economic tough times are even showing up here.

All I’ve got to say is I am SO GLAD to be in North Dakota.  So far for 2009 we’re showing strong increases over 2008 which was the strongest year we’ve had in my memory.

2009 is fitting in right with the average growth we’ve seen since 2003.  We’re very happy with our sales performance over that time.

It will come as no surprise that our strongest category has been pumps in 2009.  The crummy spring weather has held us back in a lot of categories.  I think that puts us in great shape for summer, should it ever come.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

We Have UnderArmour and Columbia Sportswear at the Guarenteed Lowest Price!

We do great in some of our clothing lines especially work clothing lines like Carhartt and Williamson Dickie.  We also do great in western wear and jeans.

However we really weren’t doing a great job in sportswear.  Our new buyer saw that lack and went out and got us a couple of the best names in sportswear.

First of all we have Underarmour which is one of the hottest brands out there.  He brought some of that in last fall and we just plain sold out.

This year he’s brought in some more.  Above and below you’ll see some Underarmour clothing that we had customized with the Fighting Sioux logo.

We’ve also got shorts and some other sports shirts.

The other hot new brand we have going is Columbia sportwear.  We just got this in for spring and it’s been going really well.

And here are some great polo shirts at the everyday low price of $24.99 which is a great value nowdays.  (I’ve already got most of these colors.)

We’re even trying out some of the Columbia casual/sport footwear.  Looks like nice stuff.

We have sold Columbia winter boots for a few years and are doing fantastic with them.  This fall we’re getting in a line of Columbia winter coats which we’re so excited to be able to offer.  We sell a lot of winter coats but most of them are more utilitarian like Carhartt.  When we get Columbia jackets in we’ll be able to satisfy a different segment of the population without taking away our leadership in work clothing.

We’re really excited to be offering these two great brands.  We have them in every store across the state. 

Monday, May 11, 2009

Great Value on Cordless String Trimmer

Our buyer negotiated a great deal on the WORX brand of cordless string trimmer.  He was able to get a free battery to go with the string trimmer.  Right now we have these on sale for $109.99 WITH THE EXTRA BATTERY.  Such a deal!

Cordless string trimmers aren’t the right tool for a large lawn, but if you just have a few areas you like to clean up they are the way to go.  They are light plus they don’t have the hassles you get with a gas powered trimmer.

They’re even more valuable if you can charge one batter while you use the other.  You’ll never have to sit on the hammock while you’re waiting for the charger to get the trimmer ready to go.

Wait, maybe they aren’t such a great idea.

Anyway because this was an add-on they didn’t come with the trimmers.  We’ve told sales people to catch the customers (and we’ve put up signs like above) to make sure they get the extra battery.  It never hurts us to have the customers know what they’re supposed to get because we don’t always have time during the busy seasons.

And we fully expect that we’ll have a short but sweet (busy) lawn and garden season.  We’ve already sold 1/3 of the trimmers we could get (even though the grass is just getting started.  You’ll want to get here right away.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

The Sunshine Savings Flyer is Out

Update!  We’ve got the entire flyer posted up on the main web site.  Click here to view the entire thing in it’s glorious detail. 

Our Sunshine Savings flyer was out in the newspapers yesterday.  Well, we put it out in the daily papers on Wednesday but some of our towns don’t have a strong daily newspaper so we wind out putting it out anything from a Monday (in Devils lake to Saturday in Jamestown).  Normally that doesn’t cause a lot of problems but with flyers that are time sensitive, like the Thanksgiving Flyer it can be a problem. 

This is a twelve page flyer that does really well for us.  The big reason is is that we are in a season change where people have a lot of stuff to buy.  That goes from Lawn and Garden to Fishing.

One highlight of this flyer is the Big Brown Bag Sale that I wrote about yesterday.

Another highlight is the Weber Grills.  We are really going after the leadership position with Weber Grills.  Weber is the #1 name in the quality grill market and Home of Economy is the number one Weber Grill Store in North Dakota.  We are looking forward to a great season in Weber.  We were up 174% in the month of April even though the weather wasn’t all that good.  (As our buyer from the deep South keeps telling us.)

We have a great promo on Science Diet dog and cat foods for the month.  This just shows a fraction of the products that we carry from Science Diet.  It’s a lot of work handling a dog food that has so much variety, but that is the strength of Science Diet.  They cater to YOUR pet’s special needs.

We have Tempo on the front page of the flyer.  It’s bound to be a tough year for insects with all the moisture we have and we are the leader in Tempo sales. 

If you turn the page you’ll see our clothing department first on pages 2 and 3.  We have great offerings on Carhartt summer and spring wear, work boots, and Jeans.  We also have been selling those kids boots like crazy.

We’ve got a lot of fishing gear on sale.  One place where Home of Economy really shines is in the marine batteries, both starting and deep cycle.  The last thing you want is for you to have a battery problem when you’re out on the lake.  (But if you do and you’re fishing Devils Lake we can help you out in our store there.)

We’ve got gun safes on sale in this flyer.  Like ammunition Gun safes are experiencing a boom.  They are in short supply so if you’re thinking of buying one this year now would be the time. 

We’ve got a real attractive lawn and garden page strong in power equipment.

We’ve got nearly a full page of bird and animal feed.  We’ve been expanding our offerings in the pet food.  You’ll see that all stores have Diamond, Nutro and Pedigree small crunchy bites.  We’re also carrying a fair bit of Iams dog food in the stores, but that isn’t in the flyer.  It’s starting to sell very well.  We’re still committed to the Science Diet brand but we want to be able to serve people who have their favorite foods.

WE’ve got a ton of tools for your home/shop and for your yard on sale as well. 

And on the back page we’ve got tires and batteries and trailers.  That’s what we always have, but that’s because it’s such an important category.

We should have the entire flyer posted to the regular web site tonight.  When that happens I’ll link to it.  Until then we have plenty of store copies for you to pick up.  Recently we changed our order to have a TON of flyers for the customers.  That’s because we found that many of our customers no longer take the newspapers.  We want to make sure we have copies for them as well.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

It’s the Big Brown Bag Sale!

I know you’ve been waiting for it.  It’s Home of Eocnomy’s Big Brown Bag Sale.  We give 12% off anything you can fit into the bag.  What makes our bag sale better is that IT’S GOOD FOR SALE AND CLEARANCE ITEMS.

We’ve got a full 12 page flyer out today as well so go ahead and take advantage of it.  There’s a ton of great values out there and they only get better if you shop smart.  If you don’t have a flyer to get the coupon in go ahead come in anyway and if you ask for one we’ll let you have it without the coupon.

We do have some exclusions to the sale, which include:

Ammunition
National Brand Oil
DeWalt and Makita power tools
Gift Cards
Salt
Electronic Fishing Aids (Depth Finders)

And we don’t honor the pricing for prior sales.

This event is only good from today (May 6th until Monday May 11th.) 

By the way, we have to keep the bag for the one next year.  Sorry. 

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Lawn and Garden TV Ad

Here’s our Lawn and Garden ad to start the season.  We only have time to highlight a few of the lawn and garden items we sell.  We really do have the most complete department out there.

We have the power equipment with SERVICE and small engine parts, lawn chemicals, fertilizers, sprayers, decorative stuff (I don’t know what to call it), lawn furniture, a great greenhouse in Grand Forks…  I just don’t know where it ends. 

The great thing is we’re able to offer all of this, some of which you’d only find in a specialty shop, at the Guarenteed Lowest Price. 

Monday, May 04, 2009

The New Fishing TV Ad

That’s the new fishing ad.  We’re putting the #1 lure, Rapala on sale to start out the season. 

I was told once by someone who shops around that we have the best prices on fishing stuff of anywhere between Wahpeton and Lake of the Woods.  I don’t know how scientific that is, but this guy is the kind of guy that hunts out the best price no matter what.

We do great in fishing in most of our towns.  One thing that stands us apart is having low prices AND being able to get everything else you need INCLUDING BAIT. 

One thing we should have included was we are the #1 place to get marine batteries from.  Whether you need it to start your engine or power your trolling motor we can’t be beat on price and quality. 

We do recommend that if you’ve used your deep cycle battery a lot in the last two years that you get a new one.  These drop off in power as they’re use. 

We will test your marine starting battery for free.  That way you can feel assured that your boat starts when you’re out on the lake.  (Or at least if it doesn’t start it isn’t the battery.)

Home of Economy is your fishing headquarters. 

Friday, May 01, 2009

Shout Out for our Pump Buyer

I want to publically thank our pump buyer, Ray Savage, for doing a terrific job keeping us in stock during the flood emergency that we experienced across all of our stores.

It was a rare thing for us to be out of pumps during the last two months in any of our stores.  In fact from what I can tell the only time we were out was a couple days we couldn’t get down to Jamestown due to one of the recurring blizzards we were blessed with this spring.

It’s more than watching a few different pumps.  Ray had to make sure we had all of the accessories as well.  He was scrambling to find hose and fittings during the time too.  At one time we were working on getting a back up supply of hose because our supplier is located in Fargo and we didn’t know if we could get to them.

We also need to thank the many people that did what it took to get the pumps in the stores.  We were sending pickups and trucks back and forth trying to keep everything in stock.  At one time a couple weeks ago our Jamestown store manager sent a guy with a truck up to pick up a load.  Those pumps arrived just in time.

I do want to point out that we honored our sale prices 100% of the time during the pump emergency.  We also ate price increases that came up during the time when we couldn’t get the same buy’s on hose and other supplies.

And of course a big thanks needs to be made to those in the stores that did a great job helping out the customers when they needed us the most.  We know that being involved in a flood is a stressful time and the customers aren’t always in the best of moods.  But our team stuck in there and did their best for the customers. 

That’s something I’m very proud of!

Home of Economy Is the Place to Go for Workboots and Western Boots

Over the last few years we’ve really upgraded our boot department.  We’ve greatly expanded our boot displays in Grand Forks, Grafton, Devils Lake and Minot.  Not only that we’re offering far more styles than ever. 

I was just walking through the Grand Forks store and I thought that this new display by the clothing and boot department was a BIG WOW!  Great job!

Here are a few of the other displays in Grand Forks.  This is the Ariat youth display.  The previous picture is primarily Ariat as well.  This line has just exploded for us coming out of no where to become the biggest boot line we sell.  It’s a great line of fashion boots as well as work boots for men.  I’ve talked to some men who say it’s the only pair of boots they’ll wear.

Work boots are still the biggest category.  Our biggest seller is the Wolverine line, followed closely by the Carhartt line of work boots.  You can’t go wrong with these.  We sell an incredible number of steel toed an soft toed work boots. We’ve found that most of the customers want a quality work boot knowing that they’ll be far more comfortable to wear ten hours a day.  Not only that the entry level priced boots (which we also sell) don’t last as long. 

And here’s just part of the men’s work boots we sell.

For service, price, value and quality Home of Economy can’t be beat in boots!