Tonnies Hardware & Rental: Century-Long Tradition of Service Combines with RockSolid Technology to Create a Powerful Value Proposition

ECi RockSolid POS customer Tonnies Hardware

Susan & Steven Tonnies, Owners

Dealership:: Tonnies Hardware & Rental; Albers, Illinois
Industry:: Hardware
Affiliation:: Orgill
In Business Since:: 1912

Tonnies Hardware & Rental uses:: POS software for hardware and lumber dealers

After close to 30 years in hardware retailing, Susan Tonnies knows what drives success. “Even with all the competition today, it’s still very much a relationship business,” she says. “It’s all about listening to the customer, being able to identify what they need and giving it to them in a way that keeps them happy and coming back.”

It’s a business philosophy that has worked well for close to a century for Tonnies Hardware & Rental, the business Susan and her husband, Steven, run in Albers, Illinois.

The great thing about RockSolid as a company is that they have the same kind of approach to taking care of their customers that we do.

They represent the third generation of the Tonnies family to operate the business, which was founded in 1912 by Steven’s grandfather.

The company slogan back then was “We Sell Everything,” and, says Susan, in that respect, things haven’t really changed that much.

In addition to a thriving rental business, Tonnies stocks over 30,000 hardware SKUs in a 12,000-square-foot store. “We have deep departments, people who know the industry and a reputation for service that’s second to none,” she says. “Our customers know that if they come in with a hardware-related problem, they can rely on us to let them walk out with a solution!”

It’s a value proposition that has proved its worth over four generations—Susan and Steven’s daughter, Sheryl, also works in the business—and even with competition from the likes of Lowe's, the Home Depot and other big box operators just down the road, it continues to keep the registers ringing.

When we switched, our people picked up the RockSolid’s Point of Sale system almost within minutes. It’s easy to use and has saved us so much in time and labor compared to Activant.

But no business today can succeed without a strong technology backbone and, as Susan is the first to admit, that’s where RockSolid has made a huge difference for the Tonnies team.

“The great thing about RockSolid as a company is that they have the same kind of approach to taking care of their customers that we do,” she reports happily. “It’s a system designed by hardware dealers for hardware dealers. RockSolid understands our business and they understand about taking care of customers—they are willing to listen and give dealers like us a system that meets our needs and then some!”

"RockSolid has made our lives much easier"

Tonnies converted from Activant to the RockSolid system about 10 months ago and, says Susan, once the system was set up and data was entered, it made life a whole lot easier for the entire team.

“When we switched, our people picked up the RockSolid’s Point of Sale system almost within minutes,” she recalls. “It’s easy to use and has saved us so much in time and labor compared to Activant.”

I cannot say enough about the handheld PC that comes with RockSolid. It’s an invaluable tool and so much better than the one we had before.

Where once the end of month routine was a dreaded ordeal, RockSolid means statements are now completed and printed or emailed out with just a few mouse clicks, Susan reports.

Managing inventory—once another labor-intensive nightmare—has also become much easier. “I cannot say enough about the handheld PC that comes with RockSolid,” says Susan. “It has about everything on it that my system has and my people can go around the store, scan items with the device and do whatever they need to do so easily—change prices, order points, quantity on hand and more. It’s an invaluable tool and so much better than the one we had before.”

RockSolid’s benefits come with a much lower price tag

“Over the years, we probably invested over $100,000 in the system we were using, to keep it up to date and add the functionality and applications we needed,” Susan recalls. “For less than a quarter of that amount, we got a complete system from RockSolid with all the features we needed, plus we are also saving money on receipt paper and statements, not to mention the savings in labor costs from not having to file invoices for our customers.”

Our support costs dropped $500 per month.

And the news has been just as good on the support side. “Our support costs dropped $500 per month,” she reports.

"We are more productive using RockSolid"

Today, the Tonnies team is operating far differently from how it used to. “We’re not nearly as stressed and not fighting for time as we were before we brought in RockSolid,” Susan says.

“For example,” Steven explains, “we don’t have to manually end special pricing anymore. You just set the end date in RockSolid, and the system takes care of it.

“It’s also quicker to add new inventory items,” he continues. “All we do is search the catalogue, click on the item and we’re done. All our ordering history, inventory levels, everything, is at our fingertips. It really is a user-friendly system and we are far more productive.”

All our ordering history, inventory levels, everything, is at our fingertips. It really is a user-friendly system and we are far more productive.

“We have time to work on better in-store displays and better marketing and more time to take care of customers and keep those all-important relationships strong. And that’s all directly attributable to time saved using RockSolid,” Susan adds.

As the Tonnies family looks to the future, they see plenty of opportunities. Scott Air Force Base, just 20 minutes away, is the home of a new airplane construction project from Boeing that promises to give the local economy a boost. New businesses are moving into the area from St. Louis, providing even more cause for optimism.

But as Susan Tonnies discusses the future of her family’s business, her confidences comes through loud and clear and with partners like Orgill and RockSolid, it’s not hard to understand why!