McGuckin Hardware retools its e-commerce business.

E-commerce retool at McGuckin Hardware

COLORADO HARDWARE BRAND ESTABLISHES A CONSISTENT STYLE ACROSS E-COMMERCE — AND ALL CHANNELS.

By Tim Burke

Family-owned McGuckin Hardware, in Boulder, Colorado, realized its business needed to hit the reset button on its e-commerce platform.

The well-known hardware brand needed an e-commerce product enhancement solution. They needed a maintenance solution. They needed to migrate their customer loyalty program and tie it to e-commerce. And they needed a more consistent image across all their channels.

McGuckin leaders realized the business needed outside help and turned to Orgill and its partners.

And that retail effort was discussed in a recent Orgill Distance Learning deep-dive webcast, which featured some of the major actors who rebuilt the McGuckin Hardware brand on e-commerce and across channels.

Tyler Musselwhite, marketing and design manager at McGuckin, talked about why they needed the retool: “We’ve had an e-commerce presence for about 20 years, but it wasn’t easy to maintain, it had limited features, and we had limitations getting our inventory represented on our e-commerce site.”

Recently, he said, they found that Orgill and Unilog, a B2B e-commerce software company, were partnering on some digital tools that addressed their issues.

“The first thing we needed, was to have Tyndale do the design,” said Grant Morrow, program director of retail technology and e-commerce solutions at Orgill.

“The other part of it was to have McGuckin onboard with our FanBuilder rewards program,” said Morrow. “We wanted to get the rewards program out of the lab and integrated in the hardware’s website.”

The “lab” he refers to is the pilot program for FanBuilder launched through select CNRG stores.

“In a hangout chat, Grant told me he had a new client for us,” laughed Mary Richardson, creative director at Tyndale Advisors.

“We were excited to work with the McGuckin team. They had a great reputation in our circles,” she said. “They were the ‘everything’ store.”

When first working with the McGuckin team, she noticed they didn’t have a style guide. “Before the website design, we looked at getting a style guide put together and also bringing their circular into that style.”

They also discussed with the hardware store best practices for data, and how customers use the site.

“Tyler and their team had a strong understanding of who they were and their brand in the community.”

The Orgill database program that houses product information – which includes photos, pricing, all content – and goes by the buzzword PIM, has grown significantly over the years, said Stephanie Lee, product data manager at Orgill “the industry PIM had about 99,000 and now has more than one million items.”

“McGuckin was one of those key accounts that really pushed us to scale,” said Lee, “their initial SKU submission had more items than were in the industry PIM.”

The Orgill data team had to learn pretty quickly what features to master, she said, to service the independent hardware retailer. The team made strides in data discovery, she called it, where McGuckin product items were matched to the enriched item in the industry PIM. Also, the team sought to, as Lee said, “nail down an efficient file submission process and track items through the process and report on the status of any item at any given time.” Orgill grew along with McGuckin in this process. Now it’s an ongoing job of continuous improvement. Customers today get a seamless, omnichannel experience at McGuckin Hardware. And that was a key to the project. “The deeper we got into the e-commerce retool,” said Musselwhite, “the more we were cognizant that our messages must all line up.”

McGuckin Hardware now has a seamless look across all of its channels including its e-commerce platform.

Tractor Supply builds pet loyalty

Tractor Supply Company is combining a rebrand and a refresh of its Petsense brand with an expansion of its Neighbor’s Club loyalty program.

The Petsense retail brand, which operated 178 locations in 23 states this summer, is becoming Petsense by Tractor Supply.

According to the giant farm and ranch retailer, the rebranding is designed to attract new pet owner customers to both Petsense and Tractor Supply stores. Under its namesake banner, the Brentwood, Tenn.-based retailer operates 2,016 stores in 49 states.

The retailer said the expansion of Neighbor’s Club benefits to Petsense by Tractor Supply, beginning on August 22, also allows customers access to a wider selection of brands and supplies such

The first Petsense by Tractor Supply, in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

as premium dog and cat food. Neighbor’s Club, has more than 26 million members, and Tractor Supply is adding new ways to earn services such as free pet washes and grooming.

“Finding new ways to provide additional value through the expansion of Neighbor’s Club to pet parents at Petsense by Tractor Supply is a natural fit given the complementary nature of the brands," said Hal Lawton, president and CEO of Tractor Supply.

The Tractor Supply app also offers “My Pet” personalization, providing a digital shopping experience for pet customers like VetInsight, connecting pet parents with a veterinarian for guidance and recommendations, and Tractor Supply Rx, a feature that gives customers the ability to order pet medications through Tractor Supply.

Additionally, Petsense by Tractor Supply will receive new external signage and internal makeovers.

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MBSA meets with a purpose

ANDERSON, INDIANA — The Midwest Building Suppliers Association’s 27th annual Sycamore Scramble brought together a respectable segment of the Indiana and Michigan LBM industry for a day of networking, friendship and golf.

The mid-August event benefited the Blair F. Collings Scholarship Program named in honor of the son of MBSA Charter President Joseph R. Collings. Blair was a senior in college when he died in 1998.

According to MBSA Executive VP and CEO Tim Murphy, the Sycamore Scramble is “a focal point of what we do in the summertime. It brings the dealers together, the wholesalers and manufacturers together, and brings everyone together to have a great time, and a little competition.”

The Sycamore Scramble raised funds for the Blair F. Collings Scholarship Program.

Equally important, he said, was the effort to support the scholarship program. Somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000 was raised during the day’s activities.

“This outing has really grown and become a great hallmark for the MBSA,” said Murphy, who thanked sponsors as well as a sizeable contingent from Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Lumbermen’s Inc. for their contributions.

The MBSA was created in 2015 through the combination of the Indiana Lumber and Builders’ Supply Association (founded in 1884) and the Michigan Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association, (founded in 1888).

“It was a marriage made in heaven,” Murphy said, resulting in bigger and better programs and services.

Among the more recent services are additions to the MBSA Learning Management System, including estimating skills for foundations and framing; and a 401(K) solution, offered through Captrust.