Hobby Lobby

"During the course of a year at Hobby Lobby, you will see approximately 50,000 new items. That is because of two practices: 1. About a fifth of the year-round items (more than 9,000) are retired and replaced every year. We’re constantly purging the warehouse of items whose sales pattern is slowing. Meanwhile, new items, as well as new colors, new styles, and new sizes, are always coming online. 2. About four-fifths of the seasonal and onetime items (some 40,000 of them)won’t be repeated next time around. Put the two groups together, and you have nearly 50,000 items you didn’t see a year ago."

"To explain what makes Hobby Lobby tick, i’ll start this section of the book with the obvious things that appeal to everyday customers. After all, if customers don’t find enjoyment and satisfaction by coming into your store, it won’t matter if you have the greatest, fanciest, most sophisticated business model in the world. I’m not into complicated theories; I just get up every morning and say, “What are home-and-craft customers looking for today, and how can I provide it to them?” The target customer for me is a woman who wants to make her home better in some way. Yes, men shop at Hobby Lobby, too, but the overwhelming majority are female. They may be interested in making an item themselves, or they may want to buy it ready to use. Either way, their goal is to create a more attractive, beautiful place to live."

"To serve customers in the home decorating and crafting area, you simply have to have a wide selection. A few years back, Sam Walton opened five craft stores called Helen’s (named after his wife). Before long, he found it so different, so opposite to the Wal-Mart model, he got out of the field. A craft store is in “the parts business.” If a woman wants to do a project that requires ten parts, and Hobby Lobby has only eight of them, she’s going to give up in frustration. We have to carry all ten parts."

"One of our most enduring categories is the product line that started it all for Barbara and me: frames. The small picture frames we made in the beginning were strictly a craft item. Customers would use them to hold small paintings for a grouping on the wall. Then a wholesale company (the same one that sold us that first frame-chopper machine) wanted to get out of the ready-made frame business. The owner sold us a forty-foot truckload of inventory for $2,000. We had no way to store this much in our small facility, so we parked the trailer out front and began running newspaper ads for a big sale. We spread some frames out on the lawn, while the rest could be seen by climbing up a ladder into the back of the trailer. (Fortunately, nobody slipped and fell and sued us!) It turned out to be a tremendous success; we netted five or six times our investment. So we bought another truckload for $4,000, and a third for $8,000, still managing to be profitable. This showed us the potential of large, ready-made frames. It’s still one of our mainstays. Today we stock every size from 2 x 3 inches to 24 x 36 inches. Granted, frames consume a lot of floor space, and they come in lots of different styles. But people will always want to hang a picture of their child or their mother on the wall, and Hobby Lobby will always be there to help them."

"Time after time, surveys of our customers tell us they come to Hobby Lobby most of all for the amazing selection. Newcomers walk in the front door and don’t get halfway to the back wall before uttering, “My goodness—this place has everything!” That’s exactly the reaction our company’s creative director (who happens to be my daughter, Darsee) is seeking. She calls it a creative frenzy. “Nobody brings together so many unique things under one roof,” she says."