October 8^th, 2009

 

Hi everyone,

 

Schuh construction tells us that we will be able to take possession of our new Hardware/Parts building a week earlier than the October 19 date originally planned. The project has gone very well and there have been no setbacks due to weather, availability of materials, or conflict with contractor/subcontractor work on other jobs. The electrical and security system are installed and working, the lights and heat are operating the floor stain finish is being applied to concrete as I write.   

 

The week of October 12 will be very busy as we ready for moving merchandise gondolas and inventory back on to the floor. It will take us 3-4 weeks to get the fixtures set up and the store merchandised after we take possession of the building. The Parts department will be ready quite a bit sooner than that. We will be ready to start selling hardware out of the new building on November 11^th. 

 

If you look in the new building you will notice a different paint scheme on the wall differentiating the Parts department from the rest of the store. We are also separating the Ag parts from the non-Ag parts, with a separate counter and separate personnel manning each. This will take place when the Parts department moves back out of the Shop to the new building. All parts service will still be from the same opening to the parts storage area the previous parts counter used. The Machinery Shop will man the counter and this will help us to improve Ag parts service to our farmer customers. 

 

For quite awhile we have been considering changing Hardware suppliers for better coverage of what our customers need, and we will be changing suppliers to ACE when we open the new store. We grew in Hardware sales last year – no small accomplishment with the economic melt down that took place during our fiscal year – and True Value does a good job providing the needed items for urban stores, but not so good for stores with a strong rural/suburban customer base like ours. We’ve only been able to buy 20-25% of our Hardware store needs from True Value. The rest we’ve had had to buy the from a number of other suppliers. 

 

In researching new hardware suppliers we found ACE to have much greater product selection for the type of inventory we need from other suppliers. We were able to determine this by visiting other successful cooperative and non-cooperative hardware stores. The most successful ones that were the most similar to us in customer base and product selection were all ACE hardware stores. In visiting CHS/LOL local cooperatives in Wisconsin and west of here, we were able to examine seven ACE Hardware store departments. All are growing in sales and very profitable, in fact in most cases they were  the most profitable department at the co-op. 

 

As well as ACE seems to fit us, it is also a member owned cooperative and ranked the best independent hardware supplier in the country. They have very good programs for retailers like us, and offered us very significant incentives to take them on as a new supplier and to improve our facility. 

 

When the new store opens we will be identified by signage as an ACE hardware store. ACE is very excited about working with us and is helping us plan the store layout and grand opening. Like ACE, we are very excited about this new cooperative partnership with the country’s leading Hardware supplier and look forward to continuing and improving our long and successful history of Hardware service to the Pulaski and surrounding area. 

 

Pulaski ACE Hardware will officially be open on Saturday, November 14^th. One of the new and exciting changes that will take place is the expansion of shopping hours. Hardware will now be open Monday thru Friday 7:30am – 7:00pm; Saturday 7:30am – 5:00pm; and Sunday 9:00am – 2:00pm. We realize that many people are tackling home improvement for the first time, and we want to be there to help them along the way. The store will carry a large selection of products in categories such as paint, lawn and garden, seasonal items, plumbing, electrical and much more.

 

 

We would like to thank all of our customers for continuing to do business with us during the construction process. We are very excited to soon be offering better service and increased product selection for both hardware and parts. 

 

Cooperatively yours,

 

Todd Rosvold

General Manager