Niche marketer rides out the recession

selection of glue and stain is carried, as convenience items.

Sterling Pacific also says it has the largest assortment of fingerjoint mouldings in Orange County. No imports, all high end products. Newly introduced are pre-primed fingerjoint mouldings. Hardwood lumber and plywood is also offered. Around the corner, an "outlet store" offers discontinued items at reduced rates.

The huge warehouse area in the back is packed with Marvin windows, but there's no waste of space due to backed up inventory. "Every Marvin window is built to custom specifications, so everything here's already been sold," Matthews says.

Nearby is a rework area, where Sterling Pacific performs patchup jobs. "Before we send a product out, we inspect it to make sure it goes out correctly the first time. We want to save our customers and ourselves time and money," he says.

Trucks are loaded in the evening and left in the warehouse over night. Employees come in at 5:30 the next morning to check the loads and make sure trucks are out on deliveries by 6:00 a.m. Contractor customers begin arriving at 7:00 a.m., while do-it-yourselfers frequent the store in the afternoon and on Saturdays. One last rush of contractors usually stops by at the end ofthe day to pick up items for the next day's job.

The company began as Southern California Marvin Windows distributor Carmel Building Supplies, Anaheim. Seven years ago Northern Cali[ornia Marvin distributor BMD, Galt, purchased the firm and redubbed it Sterling Pacific. After joining with Mission Hardwoods, Tustin, Sterling Pacific was moved last year to its current quarters.

Expansion is anticipated in the long term, to better serve nearby Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

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Ff LANOGRAMS. While there's F no question that they are invaluable in merchandising retail space, the mere mention of the word can make the most seasoned merchandiser cringe.

Not only are planograms timeconsuming to prepare by hand, but as any store planner knows, the picture is only the beginning. The real challenge of planograms is in measuring and maximizing their results.

Yet there is a solution that has proven to be popular in hardware and home centers. It's called computerized space management and performs such key functions as automatically creating planograms optimized on the user's financial goals, to managing store inventory and more.

Computerized space management began in 1974, when a mini-computer software program was developed for the food industry. The proliferation of personal computers in the early '80s led to the development of space management programs as they are today. Although the technology became more accessiblq it was expensive. Systems typically started at $35,000.

New systems were developed to address a range of merchandising needs and budgets, including planogram services for companies who use planograms on an infrequent basis. In 1988 Handy Andy became the flrst home center to jump on board. Today, home centers using space management include Builders Emporium, Builders Square, Lowe's and Wickes Lumber.

The programs are not just for retailers. Space management is used by more than 60 manufacturers and distributors in the hardware and home center industries, including Cotter & Co., Liberty Distributors, Sentry Hardware, Stanley, National Manufacturing, Masco, Leviton and Moen/Chicago Specialty. The number of users is expected to continue to multiply.

Although space management is often thought of as computerized planogramming, it is a powerful tool that does much more than create pretty pictures. Space management works by using product performance data to determine the optimal placement and stocking quantities needed on the fixture in order to achieve the user's financial goals. A paper