Carrying your store in the palm of your hand - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Nov 20, 2000 by Brae Canlen

Information technology puts inventory sales and pricing data at dealers' fingertips

INDIANAPOLIS -- Like many dealers attending Do it Best's fall market here last month, David Purcell shopped by pushing a cart from booth to booth. But when it came time to place an order with Macco Adhesives, Purcell, who owns a yard in Louisa, Va., did something that separated him from the pack: he pulled out a hand-held electronic device and checked his inventory of Macco's Liquid Nails.

"I only have about 195 tubes left," said Purcell, peering at the little screen of his Palm Pilot lookalike. Then he pushed a button and checked the warehouse price, comparing it to the deal being offered at the market. Considering the savings and his depleted stock, Purcell ordered a pallet of 480 tubes, while his father John -- a third-generation lumberyard owner who feels more comfortable with a ballpoint pen -- looked on admiringly.

The younger Purcell is one of a handful of independent retailers that has fallen in love with personal digital assistants. This infatuation is understandable, given the many applications of these hand-held devices. While not always as fast or memory-rich as laptop computers, PDAs carry enough portable information to allow more intelligent decisions at buying markets and other venues.

"I used to have to keep calling back to the store from the [show] floor to check on things," Purcell said. "But sometimes it's so loud in here [that] you can hardly hear." In place of his cell phone, Purcell consulted his "Visor" -- a PDA that uses the Palm Pilot operating system -- to see if a new water supply line from Fluidmaster was already in his store. (It wasn't.) At the Kwikset booth, he looked up the manufacturer by name and saw 29 products on the list that needed replenishment. The portable database also told him sales and pricing histories.

"I've been able to say, 'You were a dollar less last year,'" reported Purcell, adding, "Information is key."

Information technology is the real key, of course. PDA users interviewed by NHCN spent anywhere from 30 minutes to two weeks learning and fine-tuning their devices. At Do it Best, computer specialists trained Purcell and 39 other dealer-members who bought their Visors through the co-op for $325, a price tag that included software and technical support. Do it Best personnel also helped the dealers download their inventory and pricing information from the buying group's CS2000 computer system.

A group of TruServ dealers, used several types of PDAs at that co-op's September market in New Orleans. Tom Hanson of Bangor True Value also used a Visor and a $14.95 software package that allowed him to sift through his inventory data by manufacturer name, identification number and sales data. Hanson found the information helpful when evaluating special deals on items he hadn't planned to purchase.

"I could look in my Visor and say, 'But we only sold 20 last year and we still have four on hand,'" Hanson recalled. "I was pretty well prepared for the show, and [as a result], I only handed in four orders that I hadn't planned for."

New Orleans was actually the second market that Hanson shopped with his PDA; the Bangor, Maine-based dealer first tried the device last spring, at TruServ's spring show in Dallas. As a backup, he brought along a printout of his inventory records. Weighing both options, Hanson decided that he'd rather carry the six-ounce Visor and leave the 4.5-pound printout in Maine this fall.

Like several dealers interviewed by NHCN, Hanson admitted he was no pioneer: others started using PDAs at trade shows long before he did, he said. "Check with Ken Walchak in Chicago," Hanson suggested, referring to another TruServ dealer-member. "I think he might have used on at the [National] Hardware Show."

"You better talk to my brother, Ed," said Walchak, who prefers interacting with computer technology strictly on a need-to-know basis. Ed Walchak said he bought a Palm Pilot primarily to store phone numbers but decided to experiment with its database capabilities to lighten his knapsack. "I can't stand pushing those shopping carts around," he explained.

Using free software he found on the Internet, Walchak converted his Microsoft Access database into a "Mobile DB" database compatible with the Palm Pilot. He tested it out in the spring of 1999 and now brings it to all the markets except the Hardware Show. "We use it strictly as a quick access catalog," Walchak said. "It helps us when we're deciding on new items, pallet buys, and end caps."

Having the inventory numbers at his fingertips also cuts down on mistakes, according to Walchak. When he tried to order a popular lockset from memory last fall, a quick check with the Palm Pilot stopped him from writing in a number for the wrong metal finish.

Access to 'live' info available

Though obviously an improvement over educated guesses, PDAs do have their deficiencies. Dealers complained about having to break up their inventory information into several smaller files that their PDAs could handle. Having to switch between databases was also a pain, they said. Bill Round of Round's True Value in Stoneham, Mass., tried to get around this problem by loading 33,000 skus into one file in his Visor device last fall, a laborious process full of land mines hidden in stray commas and quotation marks. But when Round tried to look up random items on the market floor, "it would crank and grind and sit there and [eventually] freeze up. It was pretty much useless," he recalled.