Clark's Do-It Center Survives 150 years

The 40,000-square-foot store lies 20 miles west of Baltimore in an area rich in history. The descendants of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence still owns nearly 2,000 acres of their land in Ellicott City. "They visit the store once or twice a week," Clark said. In addition, Clark's first store opened sometime before 1845 near the original B&O Railroad station which claims to be the first in the United States.

"The store was started in the 1700's by Scottish settlers," Clark said. They came to the American colonies under indenture."In order to stay in the country, they had to open a store," Clark explained.

Ninety percent of Clark's annual business comes from DIYers, and the company has always catered to them, Clark said, even though the focus of the store has changed frequently. Hardware has been the only constant. It was a retirement business for Clark's father who specialized in providing coal and oil to heat homes. When his father and mother were killed in a car accident in 1972, Andy Clark and his brother decided to take over their father's business. Both engineers and commissioned officers, left the United States military to work in an industry they knew as kids. "I had to clean oil burners when I was a teenager," Clark said, "and I did it enough that I knew I never wanted to do it the rest of my life."

Clark DO IT

    Taking over the hardware store wasn't easy for Andy Clark and his brother. In their first year of operation, they had to start from scratch to survive. Floods caused by Hurricane Agnes ruined all the inventory in their first store. At that time, no insurance company offered flood insurance.

To rebuild after the flood, Clark and his brother had to completely restock the store. They followed exactly the inventory percentages established in a 1953 Law's publication. "Even after the flood, we doubled our business the first year," Clark said.

Other problems would force Clark to adapt again. They were forced out of the oil and coal business in 1968 when Baltimore Gas & Electric realized it had a surplus of electricity in the winter and gas storage problems at its Calvert Cliffs facility. It began to deny oil to distributors like Clark's.

In addition, family problems plagued the sons' takeover of their father's business. Andy Clark's wife divorced him months after he took over the company. He and his brother also realized a hardware store's income would not support two families. In an effort to deal with the loss of the oil revenue, Clark's began selling wood and propane stoves. Andy's brother left the hardware store to head the wood stove and fireplace division, and is very successful in that industry today in Virginia.

Clark also had to deal with the loss of another staple business at the same time. When Howard County started dividing up farms to make way for housing developments between 1960 and 1970, the farmers moved on. Clark's prosperous feed business left with them.

To survive, Clark relied on his strength and his family's tradition to overcome the adversity. "I guess my strength has always come from my family," Clark said. "In my family, if you are not hard-working, you are not given a chance to rest. You never give up and you keep trying new things until something works."

One of the recent changes Clark had to make came as a response to Home Depot. When he learned Home Depot had plans to open a warehouse store near Ellicott City, Clark decided to relocate to a larger store further west where the growth was strongest. "We were looking for a place on Route 40 to prepare for the Home Depot eventuality," Clark said. "Our present store at 40,000 square feet, we felt, was just the right size for the future -- big enough to buy at low prices and small enough to have good service. The 12,000 square-foot Hechinger's stores we saw in Baltimore were just too small for our community."

The move also brought a change in affiliation. Clark's decided to dissolve its partnership with ServiStar in favor of Hardware Wholesaler's Inc. Do-It Center concept. "As a small store, ServiStar affiliation is fine, but with a 40,000 square-foot store we felt our profits would be stronger by teaming up with HWI," Clark said.

   At first, Clark said he didn't like either of the new images of ServiStar or HWI. With less emphasis on display and customer service and more on lower prices and overhead, these new concept stores were not what Clark was used to, he said. His store, in the past, had been more classy and emphasized customer service. To compete though, he had to start making compromises somewhere, and he had to have a lower priced look.

"Now we are happy with our decision to become a Do-It Center because it's an image that stands out relatively clear," Clark said. "Besides, we should have been reducing prices all along. When Home Depot and Hechinger's started a price war, we were left behind. Service only goes so far."

Variable pricing, special promotions, unique products and services, and friendly and knowledgeable employees, have established Clark's in fairly good position to compete with the big boys, Clark said. Profit margins are up because the store has given up on a lot of low margin items. Clark's has also tried to keep its loss leader prices competitive with Home Depot's. "If we don't watch the other guy's prices, we end up with the lowest price because their prices keep creeping up. If you don't understand this strategy, you'll get left in the dust," Clark said.

To deal with the competition another way, Clark's has begun to issue a number of discount coupons rather than running ads. The coupons give customers $5 off, for example, on a $25 purchase. They apply to anything in the store. They have been effective, Clark said, because the competition can't honor them. Since Clark's no longer advertises its prices, the competition can't match them either, he added. Clark cut out almost all his traditional newspaper advertising in favor of multi-listings in the yellow pages, outside signs, in-store promotions, and direct mail coupons.

The coupons have saved the store a considerable amount of money. On the average, Clark would spend $8,000 on direct mail ads and give $20,000 away in discounts each month. Now the store only gives out about $10,000 a month in discounts. The coupon wipes out any profit the store could have made on the sale, Clark said, but it attracts people to the store. The discounts are counted against the advertising budget so department heads don't take a hit.

Another way Clark's advertises is through its staff. He's much stricter about how they present themselves to the customer. "We have a strict dress code," Clark says. "If an employee comes to work dressed improperly or not well groomed, we send him or her home. Our employees are an extension of our image," says Clark. "Our customers love our employees, we have a wall of letters sent in from customers who say what great service our people provided. We have fathers always coming in asking if their sons or daughters can work here. All our employees learn the basics--and after they have worked here, they can fix most simple home repairs. The parents love this, and the kids go off to college with great skills. Our employees know many of our customers by name and vice versa. Customers love this and they don't get that at the warehouse stores," Clark said.

Despite lower prices, customers still expect service, Clark added. Clark has been able to level the playing field with Home Depot because customers will return to Clark's for the special things Clark's offers, he said. Clark's continues to stock a large number of wood stoves, for example. His store will also rekey locks, cut glass, rescreen doors and windows, and tune chainsaws right on the premises.

As another convenience, Clark's has offered a broad small engine repair department since 1950. In the last couple of years Clark's small engine repair department has experienced growing pains while trying to provide quality customer service. Although sales have doubled since last year, Clark said the quality of service is far below what he would expect. When Clark's ran a tune-up special two months ago, the store's mechanics were not prepared for what people brought in. "People brought in mowers that needed a lot more than just a tune-up," Clark said. His company's goal was to never exceed three weeks in repair, but in the spring they got buried. Clark decided he needed at least three full-time mechanics and five part-timers to keep up with last years $300,000 repair shop sales figure.

Providing services other stores didn't offer also led to the still in the back of the store. "My wife always bought bottled water because our well water tasted funny," Clark said. "So I said maybe others have the same problem." He bought a machine from a Canadian company called Professor Purewater that turns ordinary tap water to steam to remove pollutants. The still makes about 50 gallons a day for about 40 cents a gallon. Clark, in turn, sells a gallon for 44 cents. This business is a continuous challenge, but it's worth it," Clark said. "There are few professions as noble and as well respected as a hardware store owner."

After 150 years of evolution and six generations of Clarks, Clark's Do-It Center has remained a family owned business. At 51, Andy Clark hasn't thought much about a successor. His two older daughters are successful in their own careers, and his daughter Catherine who turned 17 in June, works at the store as a cashier. Andy Clark isn't sure whether his son and youngest daughter will follow suit. "I'd like my kids to get into the business, but I want them to get into it because they want to," he said. Who knows what changes another generation of Clark's will bring to the single store on Route 40. Hopefully, they too have learned to look ahead and adapt to an ever-changing market.