New York's Williams Lumber stays visible with aggressive advertising - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Sept 17, 2001 by Andrew M. Carlo

RHINEBECK, N.Y. -- Customers who watch enough television in New York's upper Hudson Valley know Don "Sandy" Williams.

Owner and president of six-unit Williams Lumber here, Williams, 60, is featured prominently in his company's cable television and radio ads. Television commercials -- including the latest spot that includes the company's mascot, a cartoon cat dressed as a carpenter -- keep customers up to speed on what items are hot and in season at Williams' stores.

Anything Williams Lumber does to heighten its profile is critical for this 55-year-old company that operates in a highly competitive region north of New York's sprawling suburbs. Last year, Williams Lumber generated $37 million in sales, 60 percent of which came from its 10,000 professional and commercial accounts. But home-owning consumers remain an important segment of this dealer's customer base, and one that's harder to hold onto. There are five big-box stores located within a 25-mile radius of Williams' headquarters site here. Williams Lumber's aggressive ad campaign -- coupled with its affiliation with buying groups Ace Hardware, Lumbermen's Merchandising Corp. and Builder Marts of America -- gives this independent dealer the ammunition to slug it out with the big boys.

The dealer has been an Ace member since 1976, and its owner sat on the co-op's board of directors for nine years. "It's one of the most educational and best experiences I've ever had," Williams said. "They are the finest hardware coop around. Their success is in our success."

Williams believes that the personal service that his stores provide is what sets them apart from its warehouse competitors. Knowledgeable staffers, who are typically experts in their fields, man store departments. Williams himself is a regular fixture on the sales floor of Williams Lumber's 28,000-square-foot headquarters home center, interacting with consumers and associates alike.

Williams Lumber has not traveled down the home improvement highway without hitting bumps in the road, however.

Last month, Williams decided to close his Kingston, N.Y., location, a former hardware store and lumberyard that the company reopened 19 months ago after completely gutting and expanding the facility into a 10,000 square-foot store with 5,000 square feet of heated warehouse space and accompanying yard.

That store, said Williams, was cannibalizing business from the Rhinebeck location. And its proximity to home improvement giants -- less than a 10-minute drive away -- didn't do the store justice either. If he were to reopen the store again, Williams said, he would have designed it as a contractor-oriented operation.

One benefit that came from the Kingston experience, though, was a training initiative that taught product knowledge and selling skills to the store's staff. The program was enhanced by Ace's Store Training for Retailers program, which had been designed especially for employees who were recruited from fast-food restaurants and other non-hardware work environments. "They've gone from flipping burgers to selling tools," said Ron Coons, who was the Kingston store manager and stayed on as its director of training.

'Tis better to give ...

Meeting customers' demands in different markets has kept this company vibrant. Three years ago, Williams Lumber opened a 2,800-square-foot "Williams Express" outlet in Red Hook, N.Y., a town whose community hardware store had closed. The Express store's product assortment is tailored to smaller home repair projects.

A "Purr-Furred" customer card gives loyal shoppers at all seven stores 5 percent discounts off retail prices, and another 5 percent off each quarter based on aggregate purchases. Annual Customer Appreciation Days -- complete with 25-cent hot dogs and sodas -- help keep the company at the top of its customers' minds, too. Last year, the stores sold 1,300 hot dogs, and donated the event's proceeds to the Children's Miracle Network, Ace's charity of choice.

In 1946, Williams' father, Stanley, a Masonite salesman, had the idea for opening a hardware store based on a drive-through concept. A 5,500-square-foot lumber center he built on the site of the company's current headquarters eventually expanded to 13,000 square feet on 10 acres and allowed customers to drive through the building's center, park, load vehicles and exit.

The Rhinebeck store and yard now include eight 10,000-squarefoot outdoor sheds. A separate contractor sales area is located at the rear of the store, adjacent to the yard where a fleet of trucks loads up for afternoon deliveries.

For the past 14 years, Williams has taken his company's 30 best pro customers and their wives on trips everywhere from Acapulco to Spain. A cruise is planned for next year. Williams describes the trips as "thank yous" to his pro customers for their business. "They get to see you're an ordinary person," he reasoned.

Williams is anything but ordinary. He has been a major catalyst in the implementation of Dutchess County's 911 system and heads the Oversight Committee that reviews its status. Williams is also still active in Rhinebeck's volunteer fire department, where he was once its chief. Williams is also a deputy fire coordinator for Dutchess County responsible for Battalion One working with eight different volunteer fire departments.