From Slick to Simple, Merchandising at New Busy Beaver Proves Effective

Pennsylvania-based Busy Beaver Building Centers recently debuted its latest store in the up-and-coming Pittsburgh suburb of Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, and the new location features a number of smart and simple merchandising ideas.

Busy Beaver, which currently operates 15 full-service home improvement centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia is using the new Lawrenceville location to test several new concepts and provide a template for the rest of the chain, according to Joseph Kallen, the company’s CEO.

While there are many updated and enhanced elements to Busy Beaver’s new design,some of the most appealing changes were also rather simple.

For instance, the store’s designers made the space incredibly easy for shoppers to navigate by widening aisles and lowering fixture heights.

Traditionally, Busy Beaver locations featured warehouse-style racking. In Lawrenceville, however, warehouse racks have been replaced by traditional gondola fixtures, which provide easier sight lines throughout the store.

Another small but effective technique the Busy Beaver team used in Lawrenceville was to incorporate 3D aisle signs. These triangular shaped signs ensure customers can see exactly which departments are located within an aisle, no matter where they are standing in the store.

The Lawrenceville location also features a newly redesigned paint counter, dubbed the Color Café, that features bold, colorful signage.

Wood-accented vignettes in the plumbing department make it easy for the store to highlight vanities, mirrors, toilets and more.

Lastly, not all the changes in the Busy Beaver’s newest location were flashy. In fact, the Busy Beaver team said one of their most successful endcaps has proven to be one of the easiest to merchandise.

After getting a special deal on T-shirts, the Busy Beaver team simply used storage totes to create homemade dump bins. The casual nature of the display and hot pricing on the items helped create a sense of urgency among customers and helped the T-shirts fly off the shelves, according to Kallen.