Repeating history good for business

NAILING IT: Mount Pleasant Hardware owner Marc Gillson, center, talks with office manager Anne Andrade and customer Bill Woods. The company was started by Gillson's grandfather in 1923. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
NAILING IT: Mount Pleasant Hardware owner Marc Gillson, center, talks with office manager Anne Andrade and customer Bill Woods. The company was started by Gillson's grandfather in 1923. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

In a retail landscape dominated by four-lane roads and big-box stores, some neighborhood businesses have survived by relying on the age-old tenets of fair pricing, quality service and product and community knowledge. By practicing these fundamentals, Mt. Pleasant Hardware Inc. has fended off its competition and continued to prosper, even in a down economy.
The store is located in the Mount Pleasant section of Providence, an established neighborhood where three-story tenement houses date back to the 1880s. Owner Marc Gillson knows the customer base and knows his trade. He should, because his store has been a fixture in the community for almost 90 years.
“My grandfather started it then handed over to my mother and uncle. After that my parents owned it,” he said of the business he dates to 1923.
The store is unique in that it offers a tremendous variety of goods, from electrical and lighting supplies and plumbing tools, to power tools, a garden shop and paint supplies. A bigger store might supply, for example, 50 of the same identical tool; at Mt. Pleasant Hardware, they carry 50 tools, but each one a little different than the next, each for a separate purpose. They specialize in variety.
They also provide window and screen repairs, glass cuts, fabricate keys and thread pipe. If they don’t do it, they will refer you to someone who can.
They stock everything, from the latest energy-efficient water heater to those iconic green, metal bins full of nails. “It’s not the best cost-effective use of my square footage, those nails sell for pennies,” he said, “but they are here because they’re history.”
Gillson is a firm believer that helping the customer is not only a nice thing to do, but it’s good business. If a customer wants a special item he doesn’t carry, he’ll find out where they can get the part by surfing the Internet while the patron waits. In other cases, he’ll call a manufacturer to find out where his customer can get the part. In those instances he doesn’t benefit from a sale, but firmly believes the customer will return because he and his staff have taken the time to help. It’s good service, it’s good business and it’s that simple.
His store might be a staple in the community, but Gillson isn’t one to restrict his options. Many of his patrons are repeat customers from the area, but others are dedicated to his service regardless of the distance. The store regularly delivers goods to Southern Rhode Island and Bristol County, Mass. He has supplied some companies with material, such as paint, for years. Again, he credits service for his success. “When someone asks for a quote on a project our bids are usually competitive. What we have going for us is that if they need any help we are there at anytime to pick up the phone,” he said. “The phone is very important. If someone is calling around it’s because they need something,” he said.
It’s that extra step that puts the store a cut above the rest, looking for that unusual item, hustling and trying that much harder.
Recognizing the need for another service, his business has also expanded to include more glass and window repair. When the Biltmore Hotel decided to repair its windows two years ago, they called the manufacturer for advice on the hardware. The manufacturer’s answer: call Mt. Pleasant. Gillson and his crew found themselves as advisers, and then contractors, tending to every window in the historic building.
“That was a big job and it was the manufacturer that referred us,” he said. “Repairing glass and windows used to be something we did on the weekends but now it’s a full-time job.”
The store has also been able to change with the times. Fifty years ago the neighborhood had a strong Italian presence, Gillson said, and his uncle began to learn the language in order to better serve his customers. Nowadays Spanish is more common and the staff has adapted. “One woman came in not too long ago and we knew a little Laotian and we were able to help her. She was thrilled we could communicate,” Gillson said. “Nothing has changed; the neighborhood is still made up of middle class, solid, hard-working people.”
Despite the down economy that the country has experienced since the fall of 2008, Gillson described his business over the last few years as being stable. “We work really hard with helping people and making sales, going above and beyond what we would normally do to make the customer happy,” he said. “Some of the bigger stores don’t have the ability to do that like we can.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Mt. Pleasant
Hardware Inc.

OWNER: Marc Gillson
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Hardware store
LOCATION: 249 Academy Ave., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 10
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1923
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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