Fall 2018 Hardlines Strategies

CUSTOMER PROFILE

“We were locked into the property and had nowhere to expand. The old location was on a hill as well, which made things difficult for a lumberyard,” Pitts says. “About three years ago, we started the conversation about finding a new location for Hermitage Lumber.” That conversation ended this past March, with the opening of the new Hermitage Lumber location. Built on property that the Pitts family has owned since 1978 and that abuts Pitts Angus Farms, the new store takes up 10,000 square feet of a 40,000-square-foot main building, with 22 acres of lumberyard space, an expansive parking area and multiple new buildings in which to store additional products. The building, which is just south of the Hermitage border along a road

leading to an area lake, now serves as the offices for many of the other Pitts business ventures, and even has room for other businesses to rent for their own office space. The 10,000 square feet set aside for Hermitage Lumber is just its retail space and doesn’t include several open areas and offices that have been built in case further expansion is needed. New Store, New You Hermitage Lumber’s new location has also brought a new kind of clientele. The change has been prevalent enough that while the store still serves the building needs of its communities, just like it always has, the business has taken on more of a home store feel, says Larry Lightfoot, general manager of Hermitage Lumber.

Lightfoot, who runs the store alongside his wife Cindy, has seen the product mix grow at the same rate as the salesfloor. With more space, Hermitage Lumber was able to expand its paint, plumbing and power tool departments and merchandise in a way to take advantage of the sight lines along the store’s power aisle. It also brought in some items Lightfoot was more than skeptical about at first. “I was absolutely against bringing in items like wind chimes, outdoor lawn ornaments and those types of products. I firmly thought there was no way to sell those items out of a hardware store,” Lightfoot says. “Well, those are some of the biggest sellers among all of our stock, and not just among the things that are new in the store. We’ve really grown as our customers have changed.”

The large, open salesfloor at the new Hermitage Lumber location allows for a much more robust paint section as well as upgraded merchandising displays for items like power tools and home water heaters.

16 Fall 2018 • Hardlines Strategies