Hardware gets softer edge
True Value chain creates a new look to appeal to women, millennials
If it weren’t for the plumbing pipe, barbecue grills and baskets of nails, the Gilbert family’s hardware store in Spring could almost pass for a Starbucks inside.
That’s because the stores share similar design concepts, aimed to draw in customers outside its traditional male baby boomerbase.
“You rarely would hear a hardware store described as ‘pretty,’ but that’s what we hear,” said Jennifer Gilbert, who coowns the Champion Forest True Value Home Store, 16720 Champion Forest Drive, with her husband, Scott, and son, Stephen.
Theirs is the Houston area’s first “Destination True Value,” or DTV, store. The concept began a few years ago in an effort to woo more women and millennials into a store’s aisles by swapping the staid, utilitarian interiors a shopper would expect with a trendier, more inviting feel.
Here, customers browse amid bright lighting, colorful signs and expanded selection, all neatly arranged with an eyepopping layout.
True Value executives hope the concept will keep its 3,500 independent hardware retailers relevant and competitive. The goal of a DTV is to position participating hardware stores to tap a lucrative generational change sweeping a consumer landscape that has forever changed, company officials said.
True Value rolled out the DTV concept in 2007. The design’s hallmark features conspire to create a one-stop shop where customers can brainstorm with experts to plan and purchase home improvements.
The idea is to give the store a broader
“Change isn’t just refreshing, it’s essential. Consumers and their shopping patterns undeniably have changed.”
Kit Yarrow, professor, Golden Gate University
appeal and the same level of service while not abandoning its longtime core customers said Tim Mills, True Value’s vice president of growth.
For example, Mills said, company research shows the overwhelming majority of paint decisions for homes are made by women. So, the paint center, complete with color swatches and other displays, is prominently displayed.
True Value is a cooperative, and store owners are members who are free to choose whether to adopt the DTV concept. Costs vary for taking an existing store to the new layout but usually are upward of $200,000, spokeswoman Jean Niemi said. The company offers loans and incentives to those who want to make the changes.
Each DTV store is customized to the store’s market area. Some owners may choose to offer environmentally friendly products to grab the typically more socially conscious young shopper.
The Gilberts first saw the DTV layout at a trade show in Atlanta about five years ago.
“We walked in and were just blown away,” Scott Gilbert said.
“We knew in a few years this is what we wanted to do, and in Houston we wanted to do it,” Jennifer Gilbert said.
The Gilberts — who have been in the hardware business with True Value since 1983 and who once ran an original-format store in Pennsylvania — opened the DTV-themed Champion Forest True Value Home Center twoyears ago.
In that time, the Gilberts say their DTV store, which includes a decorative giftware section, seems to have had the desired effect. They’re noticing more female customers.
Saturdays, especially, are seeing more traffic from young professionals, and overall traffic from outside what they consider their immediate market area has increased, the Gilberts said.
The changes do not appear to have put off hardware’s more traditional shopper. Marianna Shini, 73 and a self-described “hardware person,” said she finds the “easy setup” refreshing. And she always finds herself browsing the nontraditional offerings — just in case she might need something.
Jan Sjoholm, 56, a cabinet contractor who stopped by Tuesday afternoon to purchase paraffin fuel for an oil lamp, also seemed at ease with the changes.
“The good part about this is you don’t feel intimidated to go into it,” hesaid.
In Sjoholm’s business, he frequents all brands of hardware retailers and said the Champion DTV’s prices are competitive with big-box retailers.
About 10 percent of True Value’s member stores have converted to DTV, and the company says there are measurable effects. Comparable store sales for the DTV models historically have grown twice as much as for non-DTV stores.
As of its second-quarter earnings report, DTV same-store sales have risen 5.6 percent for the year, faster than overall retail comparable store sales that have risen 3.5 percent.
Mills said the DTV concept shows mom-and-pops can adapt to the changing market and survive.
“Change isn’t just refreshing, it’s essential. Consumers and their shopping patterns undeniably have changed,” said Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychology professor with Golden Gate University.
Some changes are universal, driven by technology. Shorter attention spans and crunched time mean there’s more of a need for visual cues like helpful directional signs and a menities like efficient and convenient checkout. Those changes cross all demographics, too, Yarrow said.
“Any store that hasn’t done a refresh in the last 10 years is old,” Yarrow said.
Then there’s the larger generational shift changing consumer patterns for decades to come. Millennials are expected to soon exceed baby boomers with their spending power. Yarrow said indications are the switchover could occur as soon as 2016 “if we’re not there now.”
The effects will be profound. Make way for a giant wave of spenders with interesting characteristics: not the same attachment to goods as their parents, socially conscious about what they buy and from whom, doing things as couples or groups and shattering gender stereotypes. It’s a large but challenging demographic to reach.
They’ll also be driven by demonstrating creativity and independence, as their purchases will reflect, Yarrow said.
That do-it-yourself surge is where DTV can capture them.
“We see them going in as first-time homeowners,” Mills said. First, there’s a bit of an introduction necessary.
Recent company demographics show about a third of customers in DTV stores were in the millennial or Generation X age range. True Value is matching its DTV concept’s evolution with a social media push to reach them.
The Gilberts’ DTV probably has an added outreach tool in its management: Stephen Gilbert.
Gilbert, 24, said he does see his age-mates doing more small projects like fixing up homes, but there’s a noticeable gap when he mentions what he does.
“Some of them think it’s just nuts and bolts and not realizing there’s more to the hardware store nowadays than there was 30 years ago,” hesaid.
Plus, he said, good customer service and knowhow is important when reaching the generation that Googles everything.