EATON TOWNSHIP – The competition for sales of hardware in the Tunkhannock area is heating up. A new hardware store is opening, in a familiar location, with familiar owners.
The shelves are almost stocked, the racks almost full and workers at the Brady and Cavany Ace Hardware Store near Tunkhannock say they’re less than a day away from opening.
The store will carry a mix of hardware, clothing and sporting goods.
"We had a small sporting goods store. I had a lot of stuff crammed into a really small space and we were growing and we just thought it would be a perfect combination," said Brady & Cavany Ace Hardware Manager Mallia Evans.
The store is opening in the old Walmart building on Route 29 and will carry brands including Carhartt, Valspar, and Craftsman.
"We really want to develop a relationship with our customers that walk through our door and really amaze every customer that walks through our doors every day," said Ace Hardware Corporation District Manager Tony Dearmis.
But this store won’t have its official grand opening until late April, giving customers a chance to look around while employees still get used to their new home.
"This gives us an opportunity to work through some of those problems in a live environment without flooding the store with people and disappointing too many customers,” said Dearmis.
Across town, Gay’s True Value Hardware has been in Tunkhannock for decades. Workers say they’re just planning on business as usual.
"We’ve always accepted the fact that new competition comes in and we just deal with it. We just keep doing the things that we’ve always done for 100 and some years and just not worry about it," said Gay’s True Value Hardware Store Manager Dan Gay.
Dale VanVolkinburg and Ron Burgess of Laceyville wandered in to check out the new hardware store a day early, anxious to see inside.They believe more stores can only mean good things for the customers and for these businesses.
"They’ll keep their competitive prices and people go either or if they can’t find something they’ll go to the next one,” said VanVolkinburg.
"Competition brings customers in, both stores will probably benefit from it,” said Burgess.