Hardware Stores

I have a lot of love for hardware stores, especially the old style one individually run by small business people which an amazing number still are. Popular mechanics has run this piece about the best hardware stores out there. Including an interview of a kid working in a store up the road from me.

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TMI(Too Much Information)

Rush mentioned this today. The scene is funny, but it illustrates an issue that, as somebody who has worked in a hardware store for ten years part time between contracts,  can be a problem.  Too much information.  You have to be able to read your customer and avoid overloading too much information on to them.

I would never dump that information on a customer.  Never mind that what he’s saying is nonsense.  As far as I know, you don’t typically worry about recoil in a nail gun.  In any case, I would never have sold him(her?) that tool, unless the customer insisted and that case, well I’ve dealt with foolish customers before.  But an important part of selling is being able to read the customer.  What the guy in the video is what my old boss would say was TMI, too much information.  Most customers don’t want an infodump. They just want a solution to their problem.  In this case I would probably assume that this somebody sent out by somebody else to replace a tool and given them the closest match as a quick in and out where I didn’t waste the contractor’s on the other end’s valuable time.  But that wouldn’t have made for good television.

Of course you could always go for the failure to communicate angle.