Home of Economy News

Friday, December 18, 2009

Ice Fishing Ad

Ice Fishing Season is HERE!  Make sure you buy your supplies from Home of Economy.

We do a good business in ice fishing.  The problem with it is it comes all at once.  All of the lakes seem to get strong enough at about the same time and everyone’s buying all of their gear at the same time. 

The one thing people come back for time after time is bait.  We do a great job with bait in our Grand Forks, Devils Lake and Minot stores.  It’s not the most profitable line for us but it does bring in people.  I guess we could get cheap and count out the minnows but that’d take our sales people away from more important thing and we’d probably sell less bait.  I don’t see much profit in doing it that way.

Home of Economy’s Salvation Army Day

Yesterday was the Salvation Army Day at Home of Economy.  The Home of Economy Team rang the bell all day.  (The best was my 10 year old daughter who sang carols as well.)  Maybe I’m biased.

Anyway I just spoke to Major Wilson and we raised $863 for them.  I think last year it was just over $500.  Home of Economy, the corporation, is matching that up to the $500 so it was a good day for the Army.

Next Monday WDAZ is coming here to have their Salvation Army event.  They’ll be doing their evening news broadcast from here even.  That’s pretty exciting. 

We have a group of Team Members that put on an auction for everyone here.  This year they raised over $600.  The Home of Economy Team is matching what WDAZ raises up to that $600. 

The Salvation Army is a great organization that does what needs to be done.  I’m proud of everyone that helped them raise so much needed money. 

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The BAG SALE IS ON

From now until Christmas you can save 16% off of everything regular priced that fits into our big bag.  This is a great opportunity to make your own sale.

Some things like ammunition are excepted to this sale.  Other items include national brand oil, power tools, gift cards, salt, electronic fish aids.  No prior sales are allowed on this promotion. 

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Uber Deerhide Gloves

One of the hottest lines we have is Uber Deerskin Gloves.  We’re getting their made in Minnesota gloves rather than the made in China ones our competition is getting.  We think the made in Minnesota ones are better quality.

Last year we had a terrific increase in sales over 2007.  That was because we were doing a better job AND the 2008 winter started a lot earlier.  This year we’re four percent ahead even though November was much milder than last year.

Stock on hand is getting thin.  We’ve got more ordered but if you want to get these premium deerskin gloves at a great price for Christmas you want to get them soon. 

Friday, December 11, 2009

Great Gifts Flyer!

Our Great Gifts Flyer came out this week.  You can see the entire thing in a largish PDF here. 

Or you can use the link at the top of the page to go to our main website and get it yourself.  You might want to do that because we have another flyer running right now as well.  That flyer has a double wide page of gifts under $10, another double wide page of gifts under $20 and yet another of gift ideas under $50. 

We don’t go for the fancy foo foo gifts here at Home of Economy.  Well that might not be exactly true, we do have a great Fighting Sioux purse that costs almost $200.  Still our strength is stuff you need at the Guaranteed Lowest Price!

Furniture Christmas TV Ad

Here’s our new Furniture Christmas TV Ad.  We’ve partnered with the local food cupboards for years to encourage donations this time of year. 

Thursday, December 10, 2009

H of E’s Animated Santa Clause Tradition

One of my first memories of the H of E store is the animated Santa Clause that we had in the Toyland.  I talk to a lot of people around my age and they also have fond memories.

That Santa Clause was of course destroyed in our 1987 fire.  But when we reopened the store for the 1988 Christmas season we had replaced him. 

My memory at the time was that this Santa was a bit larger than the old one.  The old one, when it was new was a bit finer, but since that one was over 20 years old it was a bit worn.  Funny, this Santa is 21 years old now and I think it looks as good as new. 

Artificial Christmas Trees 40% Off

Internet Special:  Our Artificial Christmas trees are marked down 40%.  We want to clean out our selection before Christmas is over!  We’ve only got a few in GF so they won’t last long!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Internet Special

Internet Special.  Save $5 With this coupon. 

Print out this internet coupon and save. 

Not valid with employee discount. 

Winter Needs Display

Call me a retail nerd, but I really really like this display.  It makes a strong statement that we’re in the business of supplying you with our winter needs.

From left to right we have a pile of ice melt, then these cool extension cords with lighted ends.  They’re bright which makes it easy to ID your cords.  Then we have driveway markers.  Next is shovels.  We’ve got a wall full on the back wall behind here, but some people just want to grab and go.

Then we have anti-freeze.  We have an huge market share in anti-freeze.  Finally on the far right is the Power Service diesel fuel supplement.  We’ve had it for a long time, but for some reason it’s really taken off in the last two years.  I’ve had truck drivers say they can’t believe how much cheaper we are on it than the truck stops. 

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Home of Economy Now Has a Facebook Page and Twitter Feed

Over the weekend one of our managers set up a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. 

To be honest I haven’t done a thing on Facebook before this.  It seems that my entire extended family uses it, but I didn’t think I could spare the time.  After he got us going I signed up for a Facebook account myself. 

We’ve also got a Twitter feed at the same time.  I guess I’ll have to talk to him about how to monitor that as well.  I don’t know anything about Tweets.

I’m told that my posts here will show up on our Facebook page.  I guess that means I’ll have to quit being a slacker and making this a priority.

We plan on posting news items about Home of Economy as well as links to our ads and maybe doing some coupons and specials. 

Here’s the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Home-of-Economy/126040414946

Here’s the Twitter page:

https://twitter.com/homeofeconomy

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Christmas Gifts TV Ad

Here’s our latest (not yet out on TV) television ad for the Christmas season.  I think it’s a nice ad, but without much video is it going to work?  We’ll probably never know for sure.  Some people will be drawn in by the music and pay attention.  Others might not pay attention when it doesn’t have audio. 

We’ll see how December does but the truth is we’re far more dependent on the weather than a TV ad. 

Monday, November 23, 2009

Toy Flyer

Our Toyland Flyer is out.  This is 12 pages packed full of toys.  These prices are good through Christmas Eve, but if we sell out of something there’s no way we can get it back in.  So if something catches your eye you better buy it now. 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Holiday Hours For Grand Forks

I just posted our Grand Forks’s store hours on our internal forum.  I thought I’d copy it over here. 

Our Christmas Hours [In Grand Forks unless otherwise noted] will be as follows.

Friends & Family Day (November 19th) 8am to 8pm ALL Stores

Thanksgiving—Closed (It’s on a Thursday This year) All Stores

Friday and Saturday November 27th and 28th. 8am to 8pm.

All Sundays Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Noon to 6pm.

Monday thru Saturday December 1st thru December 13th 8am to 8pm.

Monday thru Saturday December 14th thru December 23rd: 8am to 9pm.

Christmas Eve: 8am to 4pm. All Stores

Christmas Day: Closed

Resume normal hours.

New Years Eve: 10-4 All Stores
New Years Day: 10-4.

Hours for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve/Day should be observed at all locations.

Last year we went 10-4 for both New Years Eve and New Years Day to make a bigger splash with our advertising.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Williston Expands Boots and Carhartt

Our Williston store has been hard at work redoing our clothing and footwear department.  We’ve seen great, fantastic, wonderful, terrific….growth in our Carhartt and work books line. 

One principle we’re trying to work on is to expand our investment in the areas that are expanding.  We can do that in two ways.  Buy more inventory AND give them some sales floor space.  The first is easier than the second.  It’s easy to justify adding more inventory when you’re growing.  It’s harder to find sales floor space because adding space means taking away from another area.

So we were probably a bit late on this but we’ve got some great progress to report.

This is our new steel toe boot display.  That’s right.  These are all steel toed.  We’ve still got a lot of soft toed work boots in addition to the men’s and women’s western boots.  We do great out there as well in those lines. 

I think this is a BIG WOW to the people when they walk in.  That’s right to your right on the front wall when you walk in our front door.  I think that makes a fabulous statement that if you’re looking for work boots you don’t need to check anywhere else.

We’ve also GREATLY expanded our Carhartt display in Williston.  This picture is on the left side of the first picture.  Prior to this our Carhartt was jammed in to the back.  Barb and Trudy came up with a plan to move our best stuff up to the front.  It looks great.  Trudy, Judy, Keisha, Kari, Dawn and Cindy put together an amazing amount of work to get it looking this great this fast!

The clothing that was in this area has been moved down the hill a bit.  We were able to consolidate some of the housewares and toys by going higher with the shelving.  That gave us the ability to move the second tier clothing (Carhartt and boots are the top tier lines) into the area we opened up.

The bottom line is that we’ve got a lot more of the best product out without taking much away from the other lines.  I think they did a great job. 

The thing is though, that these projects aren’t a one time deal.  We need to be thinking about how to do better with what we have 365 days a year.  I guess Barb has plans for more changes after Christmas.