Fast trackin’ True Value

The “looking for everything,” comment was a refrain heard often from the dealers as they cruised the spacious convention center pushing their upright four-wheel carts and collecting product information.

Yet there were plenty of specific categories being hunted down as well by these True Value dealer-owners.

Bruce Talmage, owner for 23 years of Riverhead, Long Island-based Talmage Farm Agway, came seeking a different sort of product niche.

“A new category is growing by us called ‘Homesteading,’ we’re a farming area on the banks of the Peconic River, which flows into Flanders Bay.”

He’s here in the Big Easy next to another river, the Mississippi, checking out what can give him the widest selection of items to compete with larger retail players near his store.

“We feel competition, for sure, there are lumber and big box stores all within a mile of us,” he said with a wary nod.

“But homesteading is a category we are building on – it’s defined as homeowners raising their own vegetables, livestock, doing beekeeping, and the poultry category is big now,” he said.

Then he waved so long and joined the race to check out deals.

Before the ink had dried from me writing down his comment about competition from big stores, another dealer-owner pushed his cart toward me along with his two team members. Now I was surrounded.

“We don’t have any big boxes around us at all,” his deep voice rolled. (He must have heard the previous comment.)

This voice belonged to a big dude – Sterling Cherry, owner of Madison True Value Hardware in Ketchikan, Alaska. “We’re just super steady at our store,” he said.

“We’re hardware but we sell lumber too – both steady, both pro and DIY,” he said.

Cherry and his managers kept rolling along, never really stopping, but he said: “We do well in paint, always. We have a population of 10,000. We were the only hardware store in town until just recently when an Ace opened up on the other side of town. S’okay.”

They paused for a photo and moved away. Later on, the pace of dealer activity finally slowed.

Ryan Walker, co-owner of Centerville, Iowa-based Fogle True Value with his wife Leona, stopped, set his coffee down and had a good ‘ol laugh with me.

“My wife really runs things, it’s her baby, I’m just here to see Mardi Gras,” he smiled.

“We’re here – or should I say – she’s here, to look for one thing, and that’s impulse items you find by the check-out counter,” he said.

I told him he had a great beard and face, maybe for movies. <More laughs as he slapped me on the arm.>

In answer to my next question: “Hey, what’s your biggest seller at your store?” He touched my arm again and said: “We don’t sell it, we give it away by the bushel – it’s free advice.

“We give more advice than anything else at our store; because our team members are all older guys and they have lots to say. It’s very friendly and we make new friends all the time,” he said, picking up his coffee.

Still later on, during the afternoon lull that hits all trade shows, Tyler Garrett, owner of the Moscow and Pullman Building Supply stores in Moscow, Idaho, was drifting alone in one of the show aisles and we got talking.

His store is, “heavy into lumber,” he said, as he snitched a piece of candy out of a display box <I did too.>

He explained that he uses True Value and Ace Hardware to fill his shelves and, “once in a while I use Do it Best too,” he said, chewing on gummies.

Besides lumber, another big steady category for him these days is housewares, “keeps growing, steady, but growing.”

Near the end of the show, Kay Sydwell, co-owner with husband Cam, of South Fork Hardware in Morgan, Utah, slowed her cart full of show literature and a couple laptops to chat.

“We’re looking for everything,” she smiled. <Where have I heard that before?>

“And I’m training my daughter Rachelle,” she pointed ahead in the aisle to a woman in her late twenties, “to take over. She’ll be the second generation owner.”

She said they have 13 stores, 10 in Utah and three in Idaho.

“We started in 2003, my husband and I, we came from real estate development,” she said. “We own seven of our stores and rent the others, but it’s better to be the landlord, we’ve found,” she laughed.

“Our stores handle mostly home repair items,” she said. “Only one store sells lumber.”

Before they moved off, I asked what their biggest seller was, expecting maybe paint or electric as the answers.

Her and her daughter both said at the same time: “Nuts and bolts.” We all paused and laughed hard. It was certainly the end of a full day.

True Value dealer-owners came from all over to convene in New Orleans for some Mardi Gras flavor and some wheeling and dealing. Both were accomplished. And now the race is done.

Imagery of products and people from the show: