One of the biggest concerns dealers share when asked how business has been affected is actually an intangible one. Aside from the heath issues, the threat to sales and the scarcity of some products, many dealers and managers talk about their inability to connect with customers like they did in the—all too recent—past.
“It’s awful, because we can’t deliver the kind of customer service we’d like to give,” says Carla Jorgens, manager at Osoyoos Home Hardware in Osoyoos, B.C. Despite the use of all the necessary precautions, including gloves, hand sanitizer and continued wiping and sanitization of the store’s work areas, dealers like Jorgens have to work with their customers from a distance.
Jorgens and her staff are like so many dealers nowadays, working as “personal shoppers” for customers to keep them from coming into the store. That’s what Joe Valenza is doing. Valenza (shown here with his sister, Nancy Valenza) owns Baby Point Hardware, a small independent in Toronto’s west end.
And he’s never been busier. “It’s been incredible. Since mid-March, it’s been absolutely crazy,” says Valenza. But he’s stuck with the paradox of lots of customers but having to keep them at bay. On a recent sunny Saturday, he and Nancy stood outside the store, surrounded by customers (most of them at a safe distance), fulfilling orders one or two at a time. Then Joe would disappear into the store to look for the desired items. People have to call or email in advance, Valenza notes.
Orgill is his main supplier and he has the Orgill catalogue online for his customers. In total, five people work at Baby Point Hardware and it was all hands on deck that day.
He is also doing deliveries, most of them himself. The following day, he drove barbecues to three different customers. “I keep asking Santa for an extra day off, but he hasn’t done it,” Valenza jokes.
