Hard times for hardware

Two years ago, Shelly’s True Value Hardware had its worst year ever.

The store had survived the opening of larger chain hardware stores like Lumberjack, Home Depot and Supply One. “We were hanging on and hanging in,” owner Bob Taylor says. “But when Eagle opened, we really felt a pinch.”

Taylor, who’d bought the store in 1980 from his good friend, Carl Shelly, knew he had to do something. In a last-ditch effort to save the store, he forced himself to swallow his pride and put a sign up: “Please … don’t allow our going-out-of-business sale. Shelly’s has been your family-owned neighborhood hardware store since 1944. We are now the last one left. Seven others have been forced out of business by the ‘Big Box Stores.’ ”

“It took all the fortitude I could muster up,” Taylor says. “You hate to tell the world that you’re failing, but pride was going to put me out of business.”

The sign worked. One regular Shelly’s customer, D. Brian Burghart, then associate editor of the Reno News & Review, saw the sign and wrote a story about Shelly’s. RN&R readers and community-minded Sparks residents did the rest, Taylor says.

“People really responded to it, … and as a result, things turned around,” Taylor says. “And 2001 was the biggest year the store has ever had, right after 2000, which was the worst year.”

But really. What can this tiny hardware store in a strip mall on Greenbrae Drive possibly offer Sparks residents? That’s a question that Taylor answers without hesitation.

“I can’t put 3,000 square feet in, and these big stores are putting in 200,000,” he says. “But we like being strong where the other stores are weak. And they’re sometimes weak with basic merchandising. They have 100 kinds of power tools, but they often don’t have that part you really need.”

Taylor’s customer base has simple and predictable needs, and Taylor knows what these needs are. Often, a man or woman will walk into the store with a grocery bag full of, say, plumbing parts.

“We pull everything out of the bag and lay it on the floor,” Taylor says. “Then we show ’em how to put it back together. They go home and fix it themselves. They haven’t had to pay someone $300 to do it. That’s satisfying.”

Taylor and his crew, including his son Nick, 35, who’s been working at the store since he was “a little guy,” know exactly what kind of plumbing the nearby Sparks residences have. And they keep all the right parts in stock.

“You can get parts here that you can’t get anywhere else,” Taylor says.

The business is doing fine now, Taylor says. And, at age 63, he has no plans to retire. When he does, he hopes his son Nick will take over.

It’s clear that Taylor loves what he does, and he says that’s one of the keys to success for a small-business owner.

“You’d better love what you’re doing because it consumes endless, endless hours,” Taylor advises. “You certainly need a lot of courage and imagination. You really have to know who your customers are and how to serve them best. You can forget about vacation and days off—and being a millionaire.”