Four 30-foot aisles in the 13,000-square-foot store are dedicated to farm and ranch products. Outside the store, a quarter of an acre is given over to 50-gallon to 300-gallon water troughs and tubs made of galvanized steel or polyurethane. Other offerings include cattle, chicken, deer, horse, and hog feeders along with standalone shelters, fencing, metal roofs, and the products used to finish the inside of a barn, such as sliding door tracks. You’ll find deer fencing there as well.
The dealer is also a Purina-approved distributor, carrying various types of animal and specialized feeds. Beus contacted the St. Louis-based animal feed manufacturer several months ago. A demographic study conducted by the company showed that Hartnagel had more than enough farm and ranch customers in the area to carry the Purina brand.
Hartnagel is physically one-third of Lumber Traders Inc., an employee stock-owned company with two other locations in the area, Angeles Millwork and Lumber and Angeles Millwork Showcase, a converted showroom in downtown Port Angeles.
When analyzing the possibilities in the category, Smith–soon to become the company’s CEO–draws comparisons to Lumber Trader’s roofing products sales, which were injected into the fold about 15 years ago. Now, roofing sales account for 40% of revenue.
Arguably, the king of LBM dealers that cater to the farm and ranch crowd is McCoy’s Building Supply in San Marcos, Texas. Among McCoy’s 84 lumberyards and stores in five states, 82 locations carry agriculture products, and 60 maintain a full-line assortment, according to David Dollar, a farm and ranch/building materials manager at the company’s corporate headquarters.
In 2008, McCoy’s ranked 11th on the ProSales 100 with sales of $567 million. McCoy’s estimates 5% to 6% of those dollars–$28 million to $34 million annually–are purely from farm and ranch.
