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Success Story
Bartlett Enterprises: Managing Their Business Is Easier
Terrill Bartlett, Vice President
- Business:
- Bartlett Enterprises
- Industries:
- Lumber
- Hardware
- Farm and Ranch Supplies
- In business since:
- 1937
- Bartlett Lumber and Hardware Uses:
Complete software for LBM and hardlines businesses
Bartlett Enterprises was started in 1937. Today, Bartlett Lumber and Hardware employs 70 people in 10 stores spread over the Texas Panhandle. The operation also includes sales offices and one warehouse. Two years ago a Web storefront was added through which they sell their own products—no third-party drop ship.
Bartlett’s product assortment includes hardware, tools, house wares, lumber and building materials, and farm and ranch supplies. Asked how Advantage helps to manage the variety, Terrill Bartlett, Vice President, responds, “Inventory, returns, margins—it’s just easier.
Inventory, returns, margins—it’s just easier. We have 10 locations…and Advantage has made it a lot easier.
“Since we have 10 locations, it’s been important to oversee the inventory levels at all stores and Advantage has made it a lot easier.”
The company has been using Advantage for seven years. “One thing that we added was imaging, about four years ago,” relates Bartlett. “That saves a lot of time. Mostly in manhours and in doing statements, filing invoices, even postage. It saves time looking up invoices for customers. It paid for itself in less than a year and a half.
“The POS is also very easy to use. No problems with it. It’s easy to look up past purchase history for a customer, like if they’re returning something and you’re not sure if they bought it from you.”
The support is one of the main reasons we stay with Advantage. They are always extremely helpful and knowledgeable. They’re all first rate! I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
Bartlett Enterprises differs from most hardware stores in that it also sells farm and ranch supplies. “It’s just inventory items like anything else,” Bartlett says. “But it’s a pretty large percentage of our business. When you’re in a small rural environment you have to be diversified. You have to be all things to all people. This area (the Texas Panhandle) has always been pretty isolated. When all the large metro areas were down economically, we were up quite a bit. In times like that in rural areas, people tend to shop close to home. You don’t want to drive 100 miles to Amarillo to shop.”
“The support is one of the main reasons we stay with Advantage”
“I pretty much know the system frontwards and backwards,” says Bartlett. “The support is one of the main reasons we stay with Advantage. They are always extremely helpful and knowledgeable. If you have any issue at all they get it resolved very quickly. I know most of them on a first-name basis. I’ve bragged on them to Scott (Stanford, President of ECi LBM and Hardlines) many times. They’re all first rate! I wouldn’t trade them for anything. It’s not that I call a lot, it’s just that I’ve gone to Big Sandy (Advantage’s main office) and met most of them. You just build up a relationship with people and that’s pretty important to me.”
Advantage stays current with technology
One thing we added was imaging…it saves a lot of time…It paid for itself in less than a year and a half.
Asked the top three reasons to buy Advantage that he’d tell a colleague, Bartlett replies, “Well of course the first one would be support, and also that the system is very stable and easy to use.
“We’re always looking to expand and you want a company to expand with you, and the new Advantage system they’ve come out with matches up pretty well with some of the things we want to do. For instance, expanding what we do with document imaging. The new system is Java based and can be accessed through iPhone. I just like the new technology.”
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