Magazines Archives - 2010 February

Smart investment: Buying customers the way to go
Story 8 - News Feature

If your store is located in a less-thanfirst- rate location … if your store name does not adequately describe your business, how much would you pay to attract potential customers to your store?

David Stemler, owner of PC Building Materials in New Albany, Indiana, a suburb of metropolitan Louisville, Kentucky in the US, says his promotional concept of paying people to visit his store
— at US$50 per person or family — is a smart investment.

Stemler and his nearly 100 employees carry cards the size of calling cards with them, and hand them out to friends, relatives and people they meet in church, other stores and recreational areas. Each card offers the bearer $50 towards merchandise at the store if they visit the store for a tour.

When someone redeems the card, an employee — or Stemler himself if he is available — escorts the visitor around the 96,000sqf building, taking time to show them all of the departments, which
range from a standard gondola-type hardware section to lavishly decorated areas showcasing lighting fixtures and stylish vignettes of bath vanities, cabinets, sinks and so on. They make it an occasion, not just a few moments, to point out some departments.

The tours end up visiting the store’s offices and meeting room. In the office area, Stemler uses paints, mouldings and fixtures that can be purchased in the store. Wall colours vary, and each bears a colour chip showing the paint brand and colour used, so if a visitor finds a colour appealing and considers
it for personal use, he or she knows what to ask for in the paint department. The meeting room is a handsomely decorated room showcasing various kinds of ornate mouldings.

Furthermore, Stemler offers the store’s meeting room free of charge to contractors as a training centre, and in the fall of 2009 educational classes were provided on subjects such as ceramic and stone tile installation, ventilation strategies, understanding energy principles, terminology and codes for windows, and correct HVAC sizing. Vendors did the training.

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