Fall 2019 Hardlines Strategies

OPERATIONS

Shining Moment Light Bulb Express Expands After Market Visit

After the Spring Buying Market, Blish-Mize customer Light Bulb Express in Rosebud, Missouri, expanded its product selection to include a much larger lineup of hardware essentials. Owner Tony DePung says the expansion is possible because of the deals to be found at Blish-Mize Buying Markets.

O pening in 2008, industrial customers and DIYers with their lighting and electrical needs. The business grew from Buffalo, Missouri, to an outpost in St. Louis and then its third location in Rosebud, Missouri. Now the business is looking for new ways to serve. Light Bulb Express has helped its

The final store in Rosebud is where Light Bulb Express has changed the most, and that change has happened very recently. The location has been open for six years, serving as a middle point between the business’s St. Louis and Buffalo locations, and it serves a similar mix of industrial and DIY customers. However, owner Tony DePung says he saw something different in the market around Rosebud that led him to make a change. “We’ve expanded here and there when we had a customer look for certain items, such as a specific terminal, bulb or connector. But in Rosebud, we thought we might be able to expand into more mainstream hardware,” DePung says.

“To be honest, we don’t see a lot of companies that have our work ethic. We’ve built a business where our industrial customers know that if they have a light issue on a Sunday when they have people in the factory working double time, we’ll open the store and get them that part they need. We felt we could include more hardware products in that service.” Growing Up In order to accommodate a salesfloor that could stock larger equipment, a more diverse selection of products and greater inventory, Light Bulb Express in Rosebud shifted from a building at the front of its existing property into a larger building in the back that had previously been used for storage.

10 Fall 2019 • Hardlines Strategies