Star Performance: Friedman's Home Improvement
This year marks the 10th time in 10 years that HBSDealer recognized high-performing and community-centric retailers for their All Star performance – one retailer from each of the fifty states. For the first time, this year’s constellation of stars were selected from the list of previous winners, a list deserving of the “Superstar” label.
The full list of STIHL Hardware All Stars can be found here in the May digital issue of HBSDealer.
Here’s an up-close and personal on the California honoree, Friedman's Home Improvement.
All star: Friedman's Home Improvement
Location: California.
Skinny: This 70-year-old retailer is billed as the largest locally owned, independent home improvement retailer in the California counties of Sonoma and Mendocino.
CEO Barry Friedman was very clear when he asked about his company's sustainable competitive advantage.
"It's all about our team," he said. "Our team is always looking for ways to raise the bar for customer service. We work together as a strong team to treat our customers with care and respect while offering expert knowledge and consistent support. We put a huge amount of effort into our team of great people and our processes. We believe we have the opportunity every day to create meaningful interactions between our team and our customers because, when it comes down to it, we are all just people helping people."
Friedman’s operates four northern California locations in Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Sonoma and Ukiah, as well as its 3.5-acre distribution yard in Windsor. The company originally achieved HBSDealer All Star status in 2015.
At the time, HBSDealer wrote: "When Friedman's last year (2014) finally rebuilt its Petaluma home center (destroyed by a fire in 1976) it made up for lost time with a world-class 83,000 sq. ft. facility replete with two floors of product selection, a drive-through lumberyard and a growing, breathing living wall of plants."
Since then, the retailer has continued to invest, build and grow. In addition to new distribution center in Windsor, the company made a major technology investment in 2019.
"We made the leap to invest in an Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP) system that will support our stores and teams for years to come," Friedman said. "It was certainly an overhaul to our technological infrastructure and has brought us up to speed with a cloud-based system that we know will help us better serve our customers."