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Page Hardware and Appliance Co. in Guilford, Connecticut, is grilling up sales and community involvement with their weekly in-store Big Green Egg demonstrations.
Each spring and summer, Page Hardware typically hosts a few grilling demonstrations, but this year they were inspired by their store’s Big Green Egg distributor to add Big Green Egg-specific demonstrations, says Nick Hill, operations manager at Page Hardware.
“One of the programs our distributor offered this year was to ‘earn your burn,’ which was essentially earning credit back for the purchase of the store demo grill,” Hill say. “The program details outlined different demo packages you could buy and cook on for customers to get credit back based on the number of demos performed. We felt the timing of April to May worked well to showcase the product with the grilling season starting to ramp up. It is a double win to be able to showcase the grills to customers while also earning back credit for the grill we purchased.”
Customers can stop by the Page Hardware store for different themed demonstrations each week, free samples and Big Green Egg merch to take home.
“Our customers can expect to interact with an Eggspert who is running the grill and is trained on how the Eggworks work,” Hill says. “They can also expect a tasty sample and some free swag that is normally provided by the vendor. We have been offering Big Green Egg pens, koozies and bottle openers as some take-home items.”
While the store hasn’t seen a noticeable uptick in Big Green Egg sales yet, Hill is hopeful sales will increase in the coming months.
“Normally, our return from the demos comes in the weeks and months following the events,” Hill says. “Investing in a grill is a big decision for most people and there is normally some discussion needed at home before a purchase like that gets made. It is always tough to track who comes back to the store because they fell in love with the food they had or because of the demo they got to see.”
Page Hardware’s customers love these events as much as the store loves hosting them.
“Customers love anything free,” Hill says. “We are always looking for ways to drive foot traffic into the building. It may not be an event that has immediate, measurable results, but it is more than likely getting a customer to think about us the next time they have any needs, and it’s building that customer relationship.”
