Customer Success Story : Tri-County True Value Hardware
How This True Value Hardware Store Boosted Their Bottom Line by 6%
year-over-year growth
decrease in hours spent processing paperwork
of business is special orders
Who is Tri-County True Value Hardware?
In Dixon, Missouri, Archie Atwell and his brothers, Austin and Anthony, have got a tiger by the tail. Tri-County True Value Hardware is a true pillar of the small, mostly rural community it calls home, with a proud tradition of service and value that goes back over 100 years. But when the Atwell brothers bought the business, it was struggling and barely able to break $1 million in annual sales.
All that started to change dramatically when the Atwell brothers took over. Remarkably, they had no previous retail experience, but as contractors who had used Tri-County as the go-to source for their own hardware supplies, they were confident in the store’s potential. As other local contractors became loyal customers, that confidence proved more than justified.
The challenge
That was the good news. The bad news was the level of stress that growth put on the company. Annual sales grew from about $1 million to $3 million plus in just three years, with no sign of a slowdown!
There isn’t a hardware store owner out there who wouldn’t give their eye teeth for sales gains on that scale but if it’s not managed properly, that kind of growth can create as many problems as it solves.
The solution
Tri-County had been a long-time ECI customer, using the RockSolid (Classic) point of sale software. But as business picked up, it soon became clear that while that system got the job done in the past, it couldn’t take Archie and his team where they wanted to go in the future. The Tri-County team specifically needed additional lumber and building materials functionality, which was one of the key growth drivers for the company.
“We looked at how other companies were building quotes and tracking material and it was all more than our system could handle,” Archie remembers. “In addition, we needed to easily interface with the CADD software we were planning on bringing in. All that made the change to a new platform unavoidable.”
Fortunately, the Tri-County team didn’t need to look too far for the right solution.
“I had heard about RockSolid MAX from other folks in the industry so at the True Value Reunion meeting, I stopped by the ECI booth to check it out,” Archie recalls. “They spent a full hour with me discussing our business and explaining how RockSolid MAX could help us and when I left the booth, I was pretty much sold on the idea that RockSolid MAX was what we needed to take us to the next level.”
And he points out, the system’s features were only one factor behind that decision. “There was a lot on the technical side of the software that was a fit, but I was just as impressed with the people side of RockSolid MAX. The way they treated us and the questions they asked about our company and our goals before they even started talking software left me feeling like I really didn’t need to talk to anyone else besides RockSolid MAX.”
“The way they treated us and the questions they asked about our company and our goals before they even started talking software left me feeling like I really didn’t need to talk to anyone else besides RockSolid MAX.”
The impact
Changing your business software can be a high stress undertaking for any organization. When your business is amid a major surge and you have no prior retail or programming experience, the stakes can be particularly high. What could have been a white-knuckle, heart-stopping adventure with some software companies turned out to be remarkably smooth sailing with ECI.
“We had a few challenges on our go-live day like anybody would, but ECI was there for us every step of the way and there was nothing they couldn’t take care of quickly and painlessly. The whole RockSolid MAX team was A-plus,” Archie says. “When we came to the go-live date, they had us so prepared and ready to go that it was almost just another routine day at work.”
Except, of course, for the fact that once RockSolid MAX was up and running, life at Tri-County got a whole lot easier and a lot more profitable!
“RockSolid MAX has made it so much easier for us to do business across the board,” reports Archie happily. “You build your quote, and you can flow that information seamlessly into your vendor orders, receiving documents, delivery tickets, and sales invoices without having to retype a thing. That aspect of the program alone has reduced the time we used to spend processing paperwork by at least 65 percent!”
The software’s impact on how the company handles special orders has been just as positive. “About 40% of our overall business consists of special orders and RockSolid MAX has made a huge difference in that area,” says Archie. “Every time you do a special order in RockSolid MAX, it generates its own SKU with the product info and pricing all locked in. That’s not only made it so much easier to handle recurring special item orders for products we don’t stock, but it’s also given us far more control of our margins.”
“Our bottom line was up 6 percent over the previous year and a large part of that increase was due to the improvements we were able to make with RockSolid MAX.”
Pricing previously was largely based on gut feel and guesswork, leading to the potential for costly errors. Now their pricing strategy is driven by hard numbers with far greater flexibility and control.
Talking of hard numbers, there’s one that specifically shows how the switch to RockSolid MAX has positively impacted Tri-County. “Our bottom line was up 6 percent over the previous year and a large part of that increase was due to the improvements we were able to make with RockSolid MAX,” says Archie.
Teaming with ECI will only get stronger as Tri-County grows
“RockSolid MAX has given us a game plan to run the business and the tools to make sure we come out winners,” he says. “It delivers a powerful solution for both our hardware store and our lumberyard and even if we continue to grow the way we’ve been growing, I don’t see any reason why ECI won’t be able to take on everything we want to do. We have a great partnership and it’s only going to get stronger as we go forward.”
Easy implementation
Go-live was “remarkably smooth sailing.”
6% Y-o-Y growth
Directly attributed to improvements made with RockSolid MAX.
Profitable special orders
A SKU is autogenerated and pricing locked in providing better margin control.
Data-driven pricing
Give the company far more flexibility and control.