Hardware store enjoys marriage of convenience. (McLeod-Feimster Ace Hardware)

Do-It-Yourself Retailing, April, 1996

Taylorsville, NC-based McLeod-Feimster Ace Hardware is really a convenience store that sells, apart from auto supplies and the usual hardware items, ready-to-eat snacks. The store also runs eight fuel pumps on the premises and provides Federal Express and United Parcel Service transfer and pickup service. What further sets the establishment apart from any other is their service hours, which run up to 11 pm.

Taylorsville, N.C., with a population of 1,500 or so, isn't the sort of place where most shoppers would expect to find a hardware store open until 11 p.m. But that's what McLeod-Feimster Ace Hardware aims to become within the next six months to fill a convenience gap in its community.

The store's management could be called convenience experts already. They...

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