Stephen Junga will someday be the “Junga” of Junga’s ACE Hardware here. If you’re a local merchant struggling to imagine long-term future success in an increasingly web-based world, this insight may be the key to assuring your own path forward.
In Part 1 of this two-part series, it became clear that even those who write for the Internet on the future of the Internet aren’t so sure of its once argued inevitable take over of virtually all that is retail. [1]
“I don’t think there’s a single answer,” said Jim Junga, owner of Junga’s ACE Hardware, matter-of-factly. “I think there will always be a blend of requirements, a blend of options.
“When I first started, the big boxes were going to bury us. Now it’s Amazon. The strong will survive and the weak won’t. I came from a corporate world, and there was always a flavor of the day. The only path to success is when you get in front of what the customer needs.”
Today that means working out details on budget, size, and layout for a game plan that will have moved the current Junga’s ACE Hardware to a new location by the fourth quarter of 2020 if not before. At 10,000 square feet, his current store in The Oaks shopping center is both successful and often serves as a reference model for prospective ACE co-op store owners.
But it’s limited in terms of what the Saline market needs. He believes that calls for up to 15,000 square feet of indoor space. The improved visibility of a new place some two hundred feet closer to Michigan Avenue, unobstructed, is huge. Again, it’s about the customer: “People need to see you to find you. There are also customers who may not be looking for you, but they’ll stop in because they notice you.”
Additionally, his current “store doesn’t have space for the sort of garden center we need.” Mr Junga is constrained in terms of what can be offered in seasonal items and his current warehouse area is a quarter the size required. “We need to expand what we can do for business-to-business customers.”
His statement about “a blend of options” is not just an acceptance of broad competitive landscape, but an integration of innovative technology within his store plans as well.
For example, he described a paint department where customers made finish and color selections in a scale environment well beyond anything imaginable with painted sample cards and trial take-home cans. Imagine walking into an ACE with a full-size wall set with five sheens. Customers could bring in curtains, tiles, pillows, and other items to be coordinated and place them into this set. Store employees would then use computer software to variously color that set wall in virtually any way the customer might wish. Guesswork virtually eliminated.
Importantly, Jim Junga spoke of this future in terms that went more broadly than fantastic new offerings and SKU management. Two things stood out in particular.
“Before I built this store,” he recalled, “I went to a year of school board meetings. I would have done this even if my wife wasn’t a teacher at Woodland Meadows. The school system is a magnet. When the school is growing, housing is growing. We’ve got the space. When people ask where they should go, we can say here and point to this as the substance of that.
“The most important asset here will always be the school. The biggest thing we could screw up is the school system.
Even bigger picture, in terms of the intersection of business and government in Saline, he singled out Mayor Brian Marl for praise in helping create a thriving business environment here. [2]
“Brian is a very forward-thinking Salinian. And in a world where politics seems to drive people apart, I actually see a politician who is trying to leave the noise aside. He’s got a good business development mind.”
Disparate as all of this may at first appear, the common thread for Jim Junga is clearly legacy. He has made choices, designed processes, and committed to a long-term future in Saline based on a clear vision of, in this case, Stephen Junga coming to head up Junga’s ACE Hardware someday. This thinking is very much the way that people of thriving brick-and-mortars think.
It’s hard to imagine anything “Internet” that could kill this.
References
- “Internet Predicts Death of Brick-and-Mortar; Junga’s ACE Hardware Is Planning to Build New” Dell Deaton (May 8, 2018) Saline Journal.
- “On April 13 the Mayor Announced Walk-in Office Hours: Here’s What Is in That for You” Dell Deaton (April 24, 2018) Saline Journal.
