HOME GENTER MERGHANT

BILL FISHMAN

Bill Fishman & Affiliates

11650 lberia Place

San Diego, Ca.92128 gapture more of the big-ticket d-i-y business conain the following recommendations:

I CAN WALK into any discount

I house or local hardware store and find paint, hardware, tools, electrical and plumbinq needs and lots more. The bne thinf they don't feature (not yet anyway) is lumber. So how come when I visit some home centers the only visual merchandising I'm exposed to are the same product categories I can buy in the discount house and local hardware store?

A common characteristic I find in my work with independent home centers and building material dealers is that their showroom is totally void of the one thing that makes them different from other types of retailers lumber. Many don't show a stick on the floor. Some position it across the back of the store area to give them easy access to the warehouse inventory. That's a symptom of a retailer being more operations oriented rather than sales oriented.

All of the marketing programs we develop for dealers who are out to

"Bring the lumberyard atmosphere inside! Let 'em smell it. Display lumber up front and make it self-selection. Let the customer see lumber the minute he's inside the front door.

If the showroom is 10,000 square feet or more consider splitting the center isle with lumber and building materials on the left or right running the full length of the store from front to back. Allow for wide isles and provide lumbercarts permitting the customer to serve himself and wheel the cart to a check-out counter. Stock the racks and shelves with studs, boards, plywood sheets, banks of paneling, moulding, insulation, even "takewith" millwork. The giant home centers let their customers load prehung doors, combination doors, windows and kitchen cabinets and other millwork on flatbed shopping carts. They keep sales help available to answer questions and solve problems but also make it easy for the d-i-y to self-select if he wishes.

Where space does nol allow to inventory on the sales floor it's important to let the customers know what is in the warehouse and in the yard. Do it with signs and/or sampleboards. Let 'em know about the roofing, siding, plasterboard, and timbers. "

Big showroom or small, every retail floor should "sell" the end product that their lumber and building materials create, the family room, dormer, fence, garage, shed, porch, deck, let pictures tell the story. Use photos from shelter magazines or manufacturer's spec sheets mounted on walls, columns and behind the lumber desk. Try merchandising and promoting "packages. " They're profitable and relatively non-competitive. And, while they may not actually sell as "packages," their success as a promotion can be measured in the increase in the sale of basic lumber items.

Lumber and building materials make up the largest portion of the dollar inventory at the home center. Show these products. Keep 'em uP front. Don't get caught up in jazzY product categories that cloud your market position. Resist the pink fixtur- F ing displaying giftware and the Timex i watches at the check-out counter. Remember vour lumber heritage . . sell that difference between yiu and your mass merchandising competition. Sell it in print! Sell it in the showroom.

Think wood!

,thers talk about b.i"g "around the horn" afew times-We've done it thousands of times.

Since the days of the tall-masted lumber schooners, Higgins Lumber Company has been importing, ship ping and re-manufacturing the finest hardwoods and softwoods the world has to offer.

Lumber dealers, furniture and cabinet manufacturers throughout the West know the Higgins narne stands tall for service and on-time delivery of the finest grades of hardwoods, softwoods,

From around the horn, or around the block, when you require the best, call: coLoRAoo

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