Fall 2018 Hardlines Strategies

CUSTOMER PROFILE

Crossing the Train Tracks Triple O’s Building Supply Making Most of New Space

Triple O’s Building Supply moved to a new location in April 2018. Previously, the Sidney, Nebraska, business had occupied multiple buildings in a hard-to-reach area of town. Now the store has a more open setup and parking area for customers to enjoy.

That all changed earlier this year. In April 2018, Triple O’s moved to a new location south of the train tracks that is more accessible for customers railroad with few crossings limited traffic, while a small salesfloor meant hardware items were a lower priority. G etting to Triple O’s Building Supply wasn’t always so easy. When the business sat on the north side of Sidney, Nebraska, a

Reimagining Triple O’s “We’ve always been the go-to for building supplies in the area, from roof shingles down to flooring, which we had a dedicated show room for at the old location,” O’Connell says. “Retail and hardware items were not a priority before, because we couldn’t devote space to them. Now, they’re what we’re basing the entire remodel around.” Filling the much larger space during the move was one of the first challenges for the Triple O’s team, one which Blish-Mize was able to assist in overcoming. Having been a Blish-Mize customer since 1986, Triple O’s has held on to its independent roots throughout its near four decades of operation. That played heavily into O’Connell’s decision to originally join with Blish-Mize as a distributor and has

and in clear view of passing traffic moving between the downtown area and a business district straddling the main highway. The business expanded from 2,800 square feet of salesfloor separated into several buildings to 10,000 square feet of retail space, along with its lumberyard storage. The new location for Triple O’s also used to be an independent hardware retail store, but with a much different layout and design than Triple O’s original location. This not only shifted the store’s location, says co-manager Tim O’Connell, who runs the business alongside business partner Sean Doyle, but the increased space on the salesfloor and new customer visibility has changed the entire customer dynamic at Triple O’s.

8 Fall 2018 • Hardlines Strategies