The World's Best Tool Stores

Combine great tools with history, knowledge, dedication, and service, and what do you get?

Source: TOOLS OF THE TRADE Magazine
Publication date: 2002-11-01

By Rick Schwolsky

Drive through any city or town in this country before dawn and you'll see America getting ready for work. Pre-dawn lights signal another day, another dollar. Hands that reach through darkness to turn on those lights will be steering a truck or starting tools before the first BMW pulls up to a Starbucks. And somewhere across town bright lights will already shine from a tool store, where sales reps and service tech's wait for the first pickups to pull in. Doors open, coffee hot, ready for action.

And action they'll get. From dawn to dusk sales reps greet and guide construction pros down aisles loaded with tools, and service technicians lean against their counters, huddling with customers over broken tools and open parts manuals.

There's an interesting mix of calm and intensity, trust and skepticism, friendliness and formality. The conversations are highly focused without the hard sell. Some people are on a mission, needing to get in and out as fast as they can; others linger, content to roam around and trade barbs with the sales reps. Tool stores give you a time and place for both.

Something happens when you walk into one of these stores –especially the best ones. For me, it's like being drawn to a magnet. Standing inside the entrance I can scan my world in one view. Here is everything I need to do my work, practice my craft, make my living, and stay safe. I see beauty, power, and function perfectly balanced. It's no wonder that it's so hard to walk out without buying something. It isn't my imagination –when I walk into one of these stores, I really do need something. I just don't always know what it is until I see it.

People revere their favorite tool stores as much for the relationships they build there as the tools they find. Personal attention; experienced, unbiased advice; and a full range of services mean more than high inventory and low prices. How do we know this? We asked, and you told us. We've spent the past year searching for the world's best tool stores and have heard from GCs and subs, woodworkers, manufacturers' reps, and tool lovers from all over the country who couldn't wait to tell us about their favorite stores –the best stores in their worlds –in their words.

"Around here we tell people we go to the First Church of Elliot's," says Ed Williams about Dallas' Elliot's Hardware.

"The guys at Berland's are more like friends than salesmen," says Paul May of the Chicago-area store.

"I'm a beginning woodworker, but the people at DSC treat me like a master craftsman," says Dick Stockment of his favorite store in Poulsbo, Wash.

"The wooden floors at Seven Corners Hardware creak with every step, and the narrow aisles are so full of tools it's almost impossible for two customers to pass," says John Royer about St. Paul, Minn.'s local haven.

You can't really pin down one thing that makes a store great, although a great store often has one thing that stands out –usually a special service. I get just as jazzed walking into a dark, old, work-worn tool shop as I do going into a modern showroom. It doesn't matter if a store offers every tool from every manufacturer, as long as they carry the ones they know their customers want. Key words? "They know their customers."

Prices? Well they've got to compete with big box stores, catalogs, and the Internet, so they ante up with competitive prices, and then raise the stakes by selling only professional-grade models, backed by professional service. They may specialize in pneumatic tools and fasteners, they may focus on woodworking tools and accessories, they may cater to concrete and masonry contractors, or they might have more laser levels than anywhere else, but look beyond the showrooms and shelving and you'll see that the best tool stores in the world have a lot in common.

Changing of the Guard

The world has certainly changed since Marshall Burns started his small shop in Fall River, Mass., in 1934. Burns, the 83-year-old "Saw Man," still shows up every day, but his sons Spike and Jeff are running things now. Walk through the modest tool showroom to the oiled, aged saw shop in back for a glimpse into the past, where Marshall built a business around his hand-tempered saw blades.

But beyond world-renown blades, Burns and his sons have created a long, rich history of personalized service that has earned undying loyalty from generations of customers and set standards modern stores strive for. Services new shops boast about, like pro-level tool lines, on-site tool demonstrations, on-site repairs, loaner tools, custom grinding, full-range sharpening, jobsite pick-ups and deliveries, and even machine repairs in customers' shops, started a long time ago in small tool shops like Burns Power Tools.

The same can be said for Chas. H. Day Co. in Portland, Ore., founded in 1925. While this store is one of the oldest, it has grown and changed with the times. And even though it now covers an entire city block, its core business is still the same: parts, service, and repair. And then there's Seven Corners Hardware, started in 1933. This third-generation family-owned business is huge with a vast inventory, yet people there pride themselves on the same kind of first-name-basis service you might have expected 60 years ago.

You can almost measure it by looking at the changes every tool category has gone through over the same time period, going from miter boxes to compound miter saws, Yankee screwdrivers to cordless drills, hammers to pneumatic nailers, and transits to laser levels.

And so the evolution of the World's Best Tool Store has reached an interesting point, where its future meets its past. On the one hand, modern stores with spacious, brightly lit showrooms borrow from history to provide services handed down through generations, while on the other, stores long legendary for such services stock tools they'd never dreamed of and use computers to track inventory. Of course, the common denominator is service.

Personal Service

Berland's House of Tools is a perfect example of a store keen on personal customer service. From the moment you walk into this awesome Lombard, Ill.-based store you get full attention, whether you're on a scouting mission or are ready to buy. Sales reps practically jump from behind the sales counter to help you and strike the perfect balance of being there to answer questions without hovering over your every move. They'll put your need to find the right tool ahead of their need to make a sale.

That's a common trait the best stores share. For example, salespeople at Montague Tool & Supply in Montague, N.J., don't work on commission. That takes some of the pressure off the sale and puts the focus back on service, according to Tom Meyer and Susan Stark, the husband-and-wife team that owns this beautiful store.

Alaska Industrial Hardware (AIH), based in Anchorage, has a different approach to getting its sales staffs at the company's eight large locations to take care of their customers: The company is employee-owned. "Everybody in each store has a stake in our service," says AIH general manager Mike Kangas. "They're completely focused on our customers."

This kind of service starts with a strong commitment by a company's leadership to put the customers first, and faith that doing so will build customer satisfaction, loyalty, and trust. "It really boils down to building relationships and trust," says Hal Look, vice president of 45-year-old Orco Construction Supply, one of the largest full-service companies in the country. Orco operates 20 locations in California, Nevada, and Arizona. "As big as we are," Look says, "we still try to provide small-store service."

Harvey Neu of Neu's Building Center in Menomonee Falls, Wis., agrees. "We build relationships with our customers based on communication," he says, "with the emphasis on listening."

One thing that tool distributors nationwide are listening to more of these days is Spanish. So to provide better service to the growing Hispanic customer base, they're hiring bilingual service reps to work the counters and hit the jobsites. "There's been an incredible increase in Hispanics on our jobsites," says Orco's Look, "so we're gearing up. We always try to have one or two bilingual people at the counters, and we're publishing our materials in English and Spanish."

Expert Advice

One of the most striking characteristics of leading tool stores is the high-caliber people in the sales and service/repair departments and the level of experience they bring to their jobs. In fact, when you go searching for the right tool at Chas. H. Day Co., don't be surprised how technical your salesperson can get. "Every salesperson in our store is also a service technician," says Ken Clarke. "When we aren't on the floor selling, we're in the back fixing tools." And each one covers a limited group of brands. For example, Clarke is an expert with Makita, Bosch, and Milwaukee lines.

Ongoing training is an important component of customer service that most leading companies recognize and support, especially among technicians and salespeople. Kel-Welco Distributing oversees nine locations from its corporate headquarters in Omaha, Neb., where it also operates a 5,000-square-foot "tool university" for employees. "This is a long-term investment in our people," says company president Randy Rucker. "Employees can take any business or service courses they like." Floor salespeople are encouraged to take the service and repair classes.

When you talk to a sales rep at Quaker Lane Tool in North Kingstown, R.I., you're talking to a former carpenter, mason, tiler, or roofer. Kel-Welco relies heavily on former tradespeople, too. "Ninety percent of our people come from some trade," says Kel-Welco branch manager Chuck Follett. "We've got lots of carpenters in our store."

Field experience can make all the difference in guiding tool buyers to the right choices. Most Orco Supply staff members can read blueprints, helping their customers solve construction problems and make decisions about application criteria for tools and fasteners. And if you're shopping for woodworking equipment at DSC Industrial Supply, you'll be invited into the personal shops of DSC employees to try out equipment and accessories for yourself.

On-Site Tool Demos

There's nothing more reassuring than having a technician on hand to take care of any problems you may have with a piece of equipment, unless it's having that technician go through it before you buy it. That's what you get if you buy equipment at Montague Tool & Supply. "None of our equipment is sold in boxes," says Stark. "Our mechanic preps and tests all gas engines and compressors before they go on display."

That includes checking fluid levels and even adjusting rpms if they don't match the performance specs, so you can start and run any piece of equipment they've got.

"You can swing, shoot, plug in, or fire up every single tool in our store and try them out," says Berland's manager Tim Landry. "Saws, nailers, sanders you name it. We'll take chainsaws, generators, and compressors outside to test with customers," he says.

Kel-Welco has gone so far as to build sound-proof tool test rooms in its stores. Given the large selection most of these stores offer, it would be hard to pick a tool without taking it for a test drive.

Selection and Inventory

Walk into the new Kenai location of Alaska Industrial Hardware and you're greeted by a 200-foot-long power-tool wall. The showroom has 6,000 square feet of stationary tools alone. This is where tool stores start to distinguish themselves, and where customer service meets products. The invisible acts of selecting the range and depth of inventory, the specific models within tool manufacturers'lines, and the compatible accessories for each tool category underlie all visible efforts to serve you. If a store carries the wrong lines or models, it doesn't matter how they display them or how friendly the sales staff is –it won't work.

"We're constantly trying to keep up with the industry so we can bring the best tools into our store," says Berland's Landry. "We read a lot, every technical journal and magazine out there, we go to trade shows, and we pay attention to customer requests."

You'll find massive showrooms at some of the biggest stores, like Seven Corners Hardware, where they display 60,000 items on two levels –each level covering 14,000 square feet. "We stock 950 different power and pneumatic tools, a complete masonry department, and more than 1,000 ladders," says manager Chuck Reese. "Our downstairs area is all hardware."

Does size matter when it comes to tool stores? It sure increases your chances of walking out with what you need. Alaska Industrial Hardware's cash-and-carry showrooms are between 20,000 and 40,000 square feet and they stock products from more than 400 vendors. AIH carries so many tools and parts the company actually supplies other tool stores with fill-in stock.

Another big-inventory distributor is Neu's Building Center, which offers up products from 650 vendors in its single store. "We inventory more than 56,700 items," says Neu. "We also try to introduce innovative tools and technology to our customers." Of course Orco, Kel-Welco, and Omaha-based Carlson Systems rate high on the size and inventory scales, too.

But if a store is too small to compete with these mega-showrooms, that doesn't necessarily knock it out of contention, it just has to be more selective about what it stocks and must grease the skids for quick turnarounds on special orders. Again, service can make up for size, and it does at the best small stores.

Knowing what tools to carry doesn't help if you can't keep them in stock, so a number of the larger stores have established their own distribution centers. They can re-stock their locations without waiting for the manufacturers' deliveries. AIH, Orco, Kel-Welco, and Carlson Systems follow this model. Kel-Welco stocks $250,000 in parts alone at its Omaha distribution center to ship to branches (to counter problems manufacturers are having with supplying parts).

Special-Focus Items

Tools stores also distinguish themselves by focusing on core business strengths or offering unusual specialty items and services. Carlson Systems is a good example. For 55 years, the company has been an industry leader in industrial fastening products and pneumatic nailers, staplers, and fastening systems. The company's 27 stores, located mostly in the Midwest and West, distribute products from 200 vendors, and while Carlson sells power tools, staging, ladders, and more, its focus is squarely on fastening. "We started and stayed with pneumatics," says president Don Carlson. "And we've stuck to our roots."

Orco's claim to fame is being California's No. 1 residential framing supplier, stocking tools and equipment for the large production framing crews in the state. "We've got 20 different types of framing hammers, the broadest selection of nail pouches, and all the nailers, compressors, and nails anyone could need," says Look. "We're also the biggest distributor of Simpson Strong-Tie framing hardware in the country."

"Diverse" might be the best way to describe Montague Tool & Supply, its customers, and its inventory. In addition to full lines of power, pneumatic, and stationary tools, Montague has developed a specialty for helping people lift, pull, and move extremely heavy objects. "We get loggers, farmers, quarrymen, and railroad workers in here along with our contractors," says Stark. "So we make a lot of chain and wire rope slings for them and actually advise them on all types of rigging applications." Not coincidentally, they also sell lots of safety equipment.

And if you're a woodworker looking for hard-to-find hand tools, chances are Tools Plus in Wilmington, N.C., stocks them. The store's inventory includes hand planes, spoke shaves, froes, scorps, draw knives, and vices. Of course, you also can ask the sales staff just what froes and scorps do, before you buy them.

Full-Service Repairs

Whether they're called "Tool Hospitals" like at Kel-Welco stores or simply the repair counter, tool repair services at the world's best tool stores are at the core of their customers' needs. When a tool goes down, contractors lose money.

That's why all the best tool stores are ready to respond with trained technicians, fast repairs, loaner tools, and even pickup and delivery services. "Our Tool Hospitals are authorized warranty repair centers for most tool lines," says Kel-Welco's Rucker. "We've got 25 tool technicians who can repair virtually anything."

Chas. H. Day has built its reputation on repairs, employing 12 trained technicians in its single location. The service department takes in 80 to 100 tools every day, returning about 75 repaired tools a day to their owners. "We stock about $100,000 in parts in our repair department," says Clarke. "We're the best repair facility around."

That's pretty fast, but bring broken tools to one of Fasteners Inc.'s 11 stores (10 in Michigan and one in Chicago), and chances are you'll walk out a little later with the repair complete. "There's virtually no downtime," says Fasteners' president, John Szlenkir. "We'll fix it while you wait."

With tools and technology changing so rapidly, it takes constant training to keep up. But technology is helping them in the back rooms, too. Computer programs with 3-D images walk technicians step-by-step through trouble-shooting, show them how to disassemble and reassemble the tools, and allow them to search for and order parts. "We're using the latest technologies here," says Neu's service manager Dave Bolthouse. "We use computers at every repair bench to help us keep up with the 600-plus tools that come in here every month."

Outside Sales

Stores with outside sales reps use their roving team members to enhance repair service, too. In addition to making sales calls and regular deliveries, they'll pick up broken tools and drop off loaners and repairs to save their customers the time and trouble. In effect, they bring the stores to their customers' jobsites.

Almost all the stores we found in our search have some form of outside sales team, whether it's a fleet of 75 pickup trucks like Orco's, a squad of fully equipped vans for jobsite problem solving like Fasteners Inc., or a couple of trucks that take care of it all for Burns Power Tools. And even the few companies that don't have official outside sales staffs and vehicles all provide informal services in a pinch.

So where are the World's Best Tool Stores headed? Given all the services and value-added benefits you get with a real store, I don't think the answer is "the Internet," but it may very well be "the Intranet." Companies like Neu's and Montague are exploring ways to make Web technology work for their existing customers, before they use it to expand their businesses. "We already keep track of the serial numbers on our customers' tools," Neu explains. "Now I want to see how else we can serve them using technology."

Montague's Stark sees it the same way. "I'm looking at creating an Intranet for our customers where they could gain access to our system to check inventory, place orders, and look at their accounts," Stark says. "The last thing I want to do is tie up our sales staff with people shopping us for prices on the Internet when we could be taking care of steady customers."

The world's best tool stores are run by people who care about their employees, their customers, and the products they carry. And with the thin margins they gain from tool sales, it's a wonder they aren't cutting back on services, rather than expanding them. I guess that's just another thing that makes them great.

Meet Colorado Fasteners of Edwards, Colo. This 26-year-old company is so unique we couldn't slot it in with the others. They do everything the other stores do, except they do it all from a fleet of traveling stores supported by one retail/warehouse hub.

Ten big box trucks stocked with all the things you can buy in the store cover established territories and follow regular routes and schedules throughout Colorado, hitting residential and commercial jobsites. The entrepreneurial drivers/salespeople know every construction project in their territories and maintain contact with their contractors who call them directly to arrange orders and deliveries. It's a perfect model for serving a large Western state where even the big resort towns are isolated from the closest lumberyards or tool stores by long distances and mountain passes.

Rolling Tool Stores

Bringing the store straight to contractors wherever they are is an efficient, cost-effective model for the company and a great way to serve its customers. Each truck is loaded with hardware, fasteners, tools, nail pouches, hammers, chalklines, levels, laser levels and tripods, bits, blades –you name it. Special orders, compressors, ladders and staging, and tool repair pickups and drop-offs all are available for same-day or next-day delivery. They even have repair benches where drivers can pull maintenance or make minor repairs like changing O-rings or fixing air hoses while you wait.

Five of the rolling tool stores work within reach of the Edwards store and return home each night to re-supply. The other five trucks stay in their territories, and rendezvous each day with the flatbed supply truck sent out from the store.

Wireless computers with each driver send inventory data (entered every time a product leaves the truck) back to the company from each jobsite stop. By the time a truck is on its way back to the store, the pick-list for restocking the sold items that day has already been downloaded into a handheld device used by warehouse workers to select the items for re-supply. When the truck pulls in, its re-supply order is waiting on a forklift.

What the best stores do right:

• Carry professional-grade inventory, including accessories and parts
• Offer competitive pricing, including deeper discounts for priority customers
• Provide personal service for pros based on relationships
• Employ sales reps who can match the right tool to your needs and applications
• Employ sales reps who know the differences between models and brands
• Allow on-site demonstration before you buy
• Provide a service and repair department with quick turnaround and loaner tools
• Maintain outside jobsite services, including pick-up and drop-off of repair jobs
• Offer special ordering for non-stock or unusual tools and equipment
• Stand behind what they sell
• Get you in and out fast, and give you service when you want it, but leave you alone when you're just trolling the aisles

Your Top Picks

We asked GCs and subs, woodworkers, tool company reps, and tool lovers from coast to coast, "Where is the World's Best Tool Store?" Here's what they said.

Northeast

Beaver Woodworking, Brockton, Mass.
Brentwood Machine Sales, Brentwood, N.H.
Burns Power Tools, Fall River, Mass.
Durfee's Hardware, Cranston, R.I.
Elwood Adams Hardware, Worcester, Mass.
Joseph Fazzio, Inc., Glassboro, N.J.
Montague Tool &Supply, Branchville, N.J.
N.H. Bragg &Sons, Bangor, Maine
Quaker Lane Tool, North Kingstown, R.I.

Midwest

ABC Ace Hardware, Alpena, Mich.
Berland's House of Tools, Chicago
Carlson Systems, Omaha, Neb.*
Electric Tool, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Fasteners Inc, Grand Rapids, Mich.*
Kel-Welco, Omaha, Neb.*
Linc Systems, Carmel, Ind.
Neu's Building Center, Menomonee Falls, Wis.
Performance Tool Center, Pontiac, Mich.
Pucketts Tools &Fasteners, Des Moines, Iowa
Seven Corners Hardware, St. Paul, Minn.
Total Tool, St. Paul, Minn.
Wolff Brothers, Medina, Ohio
Woodsmith Store, Des Moines, Iowa

South/Southeast

BSC Tool &Machine, Louisville, Ky.
Elliot's Hardware, Dallas
International Tool, Davie, Fla.
Leonards, Russellville, Ark.
Tools Plus, Wilmington, N.C.
United Tools, Houston

West/Southwest

Colorado Fasteners, Edwards, Colo.
Orco Construction Supply, Livermore, Calif.*
Tools-R-Us, Montclair, Calif.
Whitecap, Costa Mesa, Calif.*

Northwest

ABC Supply, Portland, Ore.
Alaska Industrial Hardware, Anchorage, Alaska*
Allied Building Supply, Tacoma, Wash.
Ballard Hardware &Supply, Seattle
Chas. H. Day Co., Portland, Ore.
DSC Industrial Supply, Poulsbo, Wash.
Hardwick's, Seattle
Jerry's Home Improvement Center, Eugene, Ore.
McClendans, Renton, Wash.

<i>* indicates Headquarters</i>

<i>Rick Schwolsky is editor in chief of Hanley-Wood's Tools of the Trade and El Nuevo Constructor.</i>