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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.