Format of the Year

Home Channel News, Jan 10, 2000

Several months prior to its debut last summer, VILLAGER'S HARDWARE had created the kind of competitive buzz that could be heard from coast to coast and even outside the United States.

The three leading dealer-owned buying groups have come up with prototypes and strategies that they believe will be needed to counter a nationwide rollout of Villager's, which is anticipated even though Home Depot, which is developing this concept, has stated no other plans than to test four stores in New Jersey.

While downplaying its own ambitions, Depot did its part to heighten the drama around the first store's opening in June inside a former Rickel Home Center in East Brunswick; right down to covering its storefront windows with brown paper for months so no one could peek inside while the store was being renovated. Ironically, once the store opened, Home Depot was uncharacteristically relaxed about such things as allowing its interior to be photographed. The retailer's officials were quite candid about the specifics of the operation, even if they didn't share sales projections or long range expansion targets.

Depot claims that Villager's, which was designed by a firm in Miami, will "recreate" the hardware-store format to better serve the $50 billion "convenience" market. At 40,000 square feet, with another 9,200 square feet of outside selling space, Villager's is much larger than a typical hardware store. Its 37,000 skus are an eclectic blend of traditional hardlines interspersed with a strong selection of home decor, storage, lawn and garden and housewares.

The concept is also distinguished by six "solutions" centers that provide help to customers seeking advice on projects.

The first store opened in a market surrounded by specialty dealers and six Home Depots within a 15-mile radius. But it gained almost immediate acceptance; a poll of 300 local customers conducted by The Farnsworth Group few weeks after Villager's opened found that 73 percent were aware of the store, 57 percent had been in it and II percent were already calling it their "favored" shopping place.

The East Brunswick location opened with 85 employees The second Villager's, a newly built, 39,000-square-foot unit that opened in Garwood, N.J., in November, has 1l4. A third store, a 36,256-square-foot Villager's that will have 100 employees, is currently being built in Saddle Brook in northeast New Jersey.

Already, there's talk among competitors of how well the Villager's Hardware format could fit into markets from Canada to England. These same competitors also speculate about the possibility that Home Depot would franchise this concept. Depot isn't saying anything at the moment about its long-range plans.