Shopping Local at Beltway Plaza Hardware Saves Money: Part One

The small town mom-and-pop store atmosphere of Beltway Plaza Hardware is deceptive. You might not realize that it’s run by Barry Blechman, a man with a business plan that could rival Macy’s, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia University to boot.

But, while “Pop” Blechman smiles and laughs a lot with customers and staff; he also uses his MBA skills to keep the store competitive in a world of big box stores. “The structure of the store is tight,” he said. “Every item is analyzed for quality, rate of sales, acceptance in the community and a price comparison with Home Depot.”

Lowest Price Index Score of 110 Regional Hardware Stores

That tight structure paid off this month when the Fall 2011/Winter 2012 issue of Washington Consumers' Checkbook magazine rated Beltway Plaza Hardware as having the lowest prices of 110 hardware stores in the Washington, D.C. metro area, based on a sampling of 23 items.

The rating is partly due to his wholesale supplier, Orgill, Inc., which provides Blechman with Home Depot prices for each item he orders. Orgill uses software to analyze product choices and provides Blechman with a computer-produced matrix called a “planogram,” which diagrams a recommended way to display the items. Blechman does his own local, computerized analysis which he meshes with the national one to make sure his products fit the Greenbelt-College Park area. He said Macy’s does a similar analysis, after losing money by not doing the local analysis at their stores around the country.

Luggage Keys Most Popular Keys 

Blechman has owned the store since 1978, when it was a bigger store that got its goods form True Value. In 1996, when the store reduced its size, he switched from True Value to Orgill.  “We had housewares and lawnmowers and they didn’t sell well. Target does better on housewares and Home Depot does better on lawnmowers, it’s not worth fighting,” Blechman said. The store the areas they are good at, which include electric, plumbing, tools, hardware, nuts and bolts and keys for house and auto.  “I learned that luggage keys account for 30 percent of our key sales,” he said, pointing to the organized display of different luggage keys in plain view of the key-making counter. Nearby were the high-tech machines that can duplicate even the sophisticated electronic keys of modern vehicles.

“That’s the nature of our store,” Blechman said.  “People come to us for small stuff, for a place where you can pick up a small item and get in and out - a place that’s convenient and easy to shop at.”

Stay tuned to Greenbelt Patch for Part Two of Shopping Local at Beltway Plaza Hardware Saves Money.