Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
The staff at Woodstock Hardware doesn’t want its customers to forget about the store during the holidays. And what better way to help them remember than by offering a holiday catalog full of store products that would be perfect in a stocking or under the tree?
It’s the fourth year the store has offered the catalog, which started out as a one- or two-page copy handed out at the register before growing to a six-page, full-color catalog that’s mailed and emailed to customers.
“We try to create some fourth-quarter business, and we want our customers to know we have a wide range of products that make great holiday gifts,” says owner Vince Christofora, Jr. “We use the catalog as an opportunity not only to sell products, but to inform our customers of the unique things we carry.”
He makes sure the products he picks come from a variety of categories—including items from both the hardware store and Diane’s Kitchen, the fully stocked gourmet kitchen shop upstairs—and at a variety of price points. “We try to mix anything from a stocking-stuffer price point up to a more high-end gift,” Christofora says.
“Last year’s catalog included a page of hand tools products, a page of power tools products, birdfeeder and wildlife products and kitchen products,” he says. “We also have a series of gift boxes, some with tool products and some with kitchen products.”
Christofora also uses coupons and other promotions he can track to see what types of advertisements are most effective.
He has the catalogs printed by a local vendor and mailed through the post office, targeting residents in ZIP codes near his store.
He also adds a PDF of the catalog to the store’s website and displays catalogs in the store for customers to pick up when they come in to shop.
“We try to get the catalogs out right after Black Friday,” Christofora says. “We don’t want to get lumped in with Black Friday, but we’ll start handing them out in the store and putting them in shopping bags shortly after Thanksgiving to get customers thinking about and preparing for the holidays.”
He says the feedback has been good, and that several customers commented on the good quality of the catalog last year. “We think it projects a good image for our store.”
