Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
From toothbrushes to tortillas, cat food to couches, with a few swipes and taps, a consumer can have nearly anything they want or need delivered to their front door, sometimes within hours. No longer just a buzzword, omnichannel is the expectation when it comes to a customer’s shopping experience. Consumers want it all: the ability to shop online that blends seamlessly with a meaningful in-store experience, all wrapped up with convenient last-mile solutions.
As e-commerce continues to grow and evolve, Forrester’s U.S. Retail E-Commerce Forecast, 2025 To 2030 predicts that U.S. e-commerce sales will hit $1.8 trillion by 2030 and will account for 29% of total retail sales.
The need for last-mile solutions like delivery will also grow. Meeting customers where they are, whether that is at home, in the store or online, is vital to a retailer’s success, and for independent home improvement retailers, any opportunity to differentiate themselves and gain some market share is welcome for growth.
Learn how two retailers are meeting their customers’ expectations with delivery services and how delivery has helped differentiate their businesses in their local markets and provide an additional layer of customer service for both pros and DIYers.
Delivery Becomes a Cost of Doing Business
When Kevin Fisher, owner of Downtown Walnut Creek Ace Hardware in Walnut Creek, California, opened his store in 2008, there was an immediate strong demand for grills and customers wanting delivery for their new barbecue purchases.
“As a new store looking to grow, we found ourselves building and delivering the grills at no extra charge using a rented pickup truck, and sales took off,” Fisher says. “We also discovered a competitive advantage by offering to pick up their old grills and recycle them, which added no real extra cost. Customers loved the service.”
After a couple of years, Fisher purchased a 14-foot box truck with a lift gate to handle larger, bulky items and expanded from delivering just grills to patio items, bagged soils, nursery products, sheds and other oversized items. The store continues to offer free local delivery for orders of $50 or more within 10 miles, but charges a modest fee for deliveries made outside the free 10-mile zone and for deliveries on certain items.
About six years ago, Fisher added a Ford Transit van to deliver smaller items more economically and meet the growing demand for online deliveries to homes. To help fund the deliveries, Fisher created a pricing strategy of slightly increasing prices on a grouping of non-competitive items to increase operating margins.
“Over the past decade, Amazon and other big-box retailers have significantly grown their online sales by offering free delivery. Watching this, we felt that delivery was fast becoming an important marketing tool for growth,” Fisher says. “As a result, we decided to absorb the direct costs of delivery and make it a cost of doing business, similar to how we offer in-aisle help with no extra fee. Helping customers easily get their purchases back to their homes is our commitment to offering the highest level of convenience and service.”
Downtown Walnut Creek Ace Hardware also partners with DoorDash for deliveries that are beyond the reasonable delivery radius or in isolated areas, which allows the company to conserve store resources and still make money on the sale. Adding delivery not only takes an investment of money, it also requires manpower.
To manage deliveries without disrupting in-store operations, Fisher has set up a dedicated build room where he assigns daily labor. The store also employs a dedicated delivery driver who will help out with builds and other services when not on the road, and has several employees who serve as backup drivers when needed.
“We train potential drivers as needed, but we usually have only two lead drivers to cover the week as we usually deliver every day of the week,” Fisher says.
Utilizing technology has also been key to managing deliveries at Downtown Walnut Creek Ace Hardware. Starting off with spreadsheets, notes and calendars, after six years of development and use, Fisher and the team finalized a comprehensive customer order management program this past fall called Omni.
A cloud-based, integrated application, Omni allows all customer orders to be managed in just one location, integrating with the store’s POS and inventory software and allowing employees to process remote sales via phone, email and text by emailing payment links to customers, similar to how Amazon handles orders. Customer orders that require attention because of missed milestones or other problems are flagged continuously for employees to follow up.
Downtown Walnut Creek Ace Hardware is currently testing Omni with several other local stores, and Fisher hopes to make it available to other interested stores for a modest subscription fee to help recoup some of the development costs.
“We looked hard for a software product that could manage all our customer orders and deliveries, but weren’t successful,” Fisher says. “Our high volume of barbecue sales combined with our growing online sales, both pickup and delivery, screen repairs, key FOB programming, special orders and other services led us to develop a software program that could help us manage all our customer orders in just one location, but accessible from anywhere in or out of the store.”
Fisher says they have had very few problems with the delivery services, as customers are kept regularly apprised of their orders via text or email, and building lists and delivery logs creates operational efficiency.
“We have embraced the new retail world of omnichannel selling, which has provided a way for us to differentiate from the big online and big-box retailers,” Fisher says. “Traditional retail sales—where customers drive to their local hardware store, shop the aisles, check out at POS and take their purchases home with them—are flat to declining in mature markets. Omni allows retail hardware stores to meet their customers where and when they want to shop, including offering drop-off or white-glove delivery options. It really works.”
Delivery Goes Next Level
Fresno Ag Hardware, with locations in Fresno and Clovis, California, has offered delivery for a number of years, starting by offering delivery of larger, bulky items like barbecues, patio furniture, bags of soil and other items customers naturally needed help getting home. Right before COVID-19, Fresno Ag Hardware went all in and made the conscious decision to become a real player in delivery, expanding to also deliver everyday items, says COO Ian Williams.
“Delivery fits perfectly into what we do because our whole game is customer service,” Williams says. “Extending that interaction past our doors and into our customers’ homes allowed us to enhance that experience even further.”
Between the operation’s own delivery truck and dedicated delivery team and its partnership with DoorDash and Roadie, there are very few items the stores don’t deliver. Geography remains the biggest constraint to delivery, with the store offering free delivery on orders over $75 within a 25-mile radius with a few exceptions for customers willing to pay a fee for longer distances.
“Sometimes the margins are slim, and we know we might break even or lose a little on the delivery itself, but we’re banking on that customer coming back in-store,” Williams says. “The lifetime value is worth it.”
The stores do not deliver large items on Mondays or Thursdays, which are the stores’ heaviest inbound freight days.
“Outside those days, we’re open to deliver,” he says. “Occasionally, a team member will even drop off an item on their way home or into work the next day.”
Williams says customers not only love the delivery services but have come to expect them.
“We’re often faster than Amazon. In most cases, orders are confirmed within 15 minutes, and delivery is scheduled shortly after,” he says. “We truly believe: deliver or die.”
While Williams says it can take some time to find the right cadence and strategy for delivery, in today’s market, delivery is no longer optional.
“The sooner you start, the sooner you figure out what works for your business. You will have to supplement gas, and depending on the state, you should consider asking your insurance company what that looks like,” Williams says. “But start small or look into third-party services like Roadie. They are more expensive to deliver, but at least you have the option available for the customer. Even just starting off by finding one person who is willing to drop things off on their way home can get you well on your way to serving customers at a higher level.”
Set Apart by Service
Providing paint, coatings and interior design services to Northern California since the 1950s, Warehouse Paint, which now has five locations in the Sacramento area, has offered delivery since the 1970s. Leslie Kilmer, president for Warehouse Paint, says delivery has been a crucial part of the company’s operations for at least five decades.
“As we’ve opened up new stores, delivery has always been a core part of our services. It’s allowed us to expand our reach and easily support customers from centralized store locations,” Kilmer says.
Each of the operation’s five stores has the equivalent of a full-time driver, with some stores having employees who split their time in that role, so other employees do not have to figure out how to split time between serving in-store customers and making deliveries. Each store also has one or more delivery vehicles, either a van, truck or both. All deliveries come directly from each store; Warehouse Paint does not operate a centralized warehouse and each location’s manager has the autonomy to manage delivery in a way that best suits that store. While the majority of deliveries are 5-gallon buckets of paint, Warehouse Paint will deliver pretty much anything for sale in the stores, while always staying conscious of the high gas prices in California, Kilmer says.
“While we don’t necessarily have an order minimum or specific turnaround time for deliveries, we certainly try to make every request work with the rest of our delivery schedule,” she says. “If it’s a contractor who is truly short just a gallon, we’re going to work that in as quickly as possible to meet their deadline. If it’s a customer who’s always having us deliver a single gallon the same day, we’ll have a conversation to find a better way to serve them and protect our bottom line. Serving customers is the primary goal so if a store is unable to get product delivered to meet their deadline, we have other resources such as our outside sales team to help make it happen.”
Offering delivery services comes with upfront equipment costs, additional labor costs, maintenance and effort, but for Warehouse Paint, this service has helped differentiate them in the market. Kilmer says other retailers considering adding delivery services should be certain they are in the position to be able to off er the service fully.
“To be able to do delivery right, you have to go all in and truly embrace the service, including all that comes with it—those upfront costs for a vehicle and personnel, maintenance costs and more,” Kilmer says. “Offering delivery provides tremendous value to our customers and is a core part of our services. I can’t imagine us not doing it.”
Illinois Hardware Store Offers Unique Delivery Service
Deliveries Come to Customers on 3 Wheels
Every summer, Oye’s Hardware in Arthur, Illinois, brings out its signature yellow bicycle to deliver orders to local customers.
“We wanted to offer a delivery service that was a little more fun and put a smile on everyone’s face,” says Casey Oye, owner of Oye’s Hardware. Delivery is available for any items sold in the store.
To be delivered by bike, orders must meet or exceed $50 and customers must live within five miles of the store. Oye’s Hardware coined the slogan, “Don’t you Quiver, We deliver!” for their delivery service, which has become a local favorite.
“Our customers love it,” Oye says. “Everyone enjoys seeing us coming down the road on the bike!” Staff members take turns pedaling the orders to customers, and Oye’s daughter, Myla, often tags along on deliveries.
“This started when our daughter, Myla, was little, and she wanted to ride with us,” Oye says. Oye says a few deliveries per week are made on the bike during the summer, bringing a unique charm to the community.
