On the big-idea of eCommerce: Scott Pesavento: eCommerce for us has not been a new strategy. We’ve had our eCommerce program in place for quite a number of years. And when we built our eCommerce program, we knew we wanted a few things. We knew we needed it to be dynamic, we knew it needed to look good and have the polish that’s going to draw that customer in. And we knew it had to have capability of interacting with social media. All that said, our strategy can be described simply as an extension to our brick-and-mortar strategy. And what I mean by that is, we have full capacity to sell everything that we have in our store. In fact, if you go on our website right now, you can buy every product in our store with live inventory feeds and live pricing. However, the strategy of the site was to build an extension of our strategic brick and mortar model, which was based on premium nationally
recognized enthusiast brands. We thought that if we can create these pillars with these nationally recognized brands, that we could draw the costumers in and then they could shop more of their needs while they’re buying their brands. So the focus for us became wants over needs. And that correlates very well in the eCommerce world If you were to drop into HemlockHardware.com right now, what you’re going to see on our landing page is what we want to be known for and recognized for the most — And that’s our brands. You’re going to see our Yeti, you’re going
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“One thing that I don’t think has changed is that the customer wants that high level of independent service. They still want that personal connection. And they certainly want to be advised. They want to have that, included in our online experience.” — Gary Hoffmann
to see our Big Green Egg. You’re going to see our Traeger right on the front page. All of those product lines are available to be purchased on our website. You have your choice, curbside pick up and you get your choice the same day delivery. But more importantly, the reason for that was customer behavior. We knew that our customer customers are not lying in bed at night
hardware store or lumber yard or home center. They want that Home Depot experience, some expect the Amazon experience. And so the question is: how do we deliver that as an independent business? And we’re very independent. We have limited resources. So making the most of those resources is so very important to us. But, the one thing that I don’t think has changed is that
searching for things they need like light bulbs, hammers and screws. They’re searching for things that they want. So we had to make sure that they had their wants, first and foremost, on the front of our landing page. And with that comes the abilituy to purchase all of the skus in the store.
the customer wants that high level of independent service. They still want that personal connection. And they certainly want to be advised. They want to have that, included in our online experience. We’re not a huge company, we’re not publicly traded, so we try to include high level of service in our interaction with our customers. And also, they want to support the local independent, too. So we’re seeing an increase in buy online, pickup in store, or buy online, deliver to me. Those kinds of things have been big parts of our business and will continue moving forward.
Gary Hoffmann: I think the common theme for us online is that it’s really an extension of our store. People’s perceptions and expectations of retail are changing, and the bar has been raised from what maybe they had thought about their local
HARDWARE + BUILDING SUPPLY DEALER JANUARY 2021
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