We think the key for us continuing to succeed in this tough economic time is to expand our store presence and get people in there so we can show them what we can do.
We just opened a really great, large new store. It’s our fourth. There’s a loop that goes around the entire Twin Cities called the 494/694 loop. We’ve been on three corners of this loop, and our new store completes the fourth corner.
The store is amazing. It has an indoor pool, which is kind of unique here. The display pool has all the bells and whistles — fountains, waterfalls, deck jets. We also own a landscaping and fence company, and with this store we’ve gone to much larger lengths to show people that we’re their total backyard design center and company. We have patio furniture, fire tables, and we’re working on some beautiful outdoor kitchen displays.
The location is very state-of-the-art. We’re doing all our displaying on large-screen TVs. We even plan to show our custom sales presentations that way, as opposed to handing out literature. By the end of this year, you should be able to do a lot of things in the store from different iPad stations, like order products. We think they’ll be able to do some chemical troubleshooting and things like that on the iPads, as well.
The store is up and functional, and it’s one of the coolest stores you’ve ever seen, but we plan to go even further with it later this year. Not only new customers, but our existing customers have gotten excited about it. I think people like to see that others are doing well and are kind of on the cutting edge and excited to be doing what they’re doing.
