Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994 TAG: 9404080190
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH COX SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We kind of walk them through it," said Collin Smith, manager of Hollins Hardware Co.
Smith describes the store, which was started in the early 1960s by Floyd Overstreet and Bill Cundiff, as old-fashioned because of the service it offers.
Owner Marvin Slusher began managing the store in 1962 for Overstreet and Cundiff. He was given an option to buy it in the mid-70s. Slusher is now semi-retired, but two full-time and four part-time employees run the store, which has a large stock of hand tools, plumbing parts, paint and pipes and a garden department. Employees also cut keys and glass but the store has gotten away from stocking housewares.
The store even has a familiar Saturday crowd that comes in with Saturday chore lists. Among them are Ed Meador Sr. and his son, who have charge accounts at Hollins Hardware.
"As far as loyalty, they're it," Smith said. "Ever since I've been working here, I've said it isn't Saturday if I didn't see Ed."
Service, said Smith, is a store's best ammunition. "Even Sam Walton admitted it: When you can't beat them with price, give them service. And you have to be careful to give them good advice."
Service at Hollins Hardware means attention to details, such as special ordering an odd part that "nobody else would even offer to do. And, if you can't, you try to direct them to someone who can," Smith said.
"People aren't going to come in here and buy big items, but they buy the $5 items."
Most of the time those small items are considerably less expensive in his hardware store than in a large store because they aren't prepackaged, and a customer can buy as few as one, Smith said.
In other words, they aren't spending their money on what they don't need, he said. "I had a lady come in one day for a 45-cent electrical item. She said she had just seen one at a home center store that was $1.79 for two. That's what people don't realize. They look at the $200 items [in home centers], not the $2 item."
When the home centers moved in, Smith said, people started shopping them for the larger items. As a result, Hollins Hardware has gradually changed its focus to smaller parts, service and the occasional special order.
Although Smith acknowledges that people tend to convenience buy - grabbing those smaller, more expensive items at the larger stores on their way out - he says having a Moore's Lumber and Building Supplies up the road has actually helped business. Moore's employees send him customers when they don't have the tiny parts, he said.
His greatest competition comes from the several other small hardware stores in the area. "The small stores sell the same thing, so you have to have location, service and price," he said.
Being part of a buying group has helped Hollins compete on prices.
Loyalty doesn't hurt, either, Smith said. Hollins Hardware deals with customers on a personal level, calling a lot of them friends. The store even has second-generation customers.
"A lot of our success is in listening to our customers. I've been in a lot of places, and they're not listening to you; they're thinking about lunch," Smith said. A survey he read reported that only 4 percent of dissatisfied customers ever come back and complain. The other 96 percent tell other people.
Hollins Hardware Co. is at 7541 Williamson Road N.W., The telephone number is 366-7696.
by CNB