After months of anticipation, home improvement behemoths Lowe’s and Home Depot have opened their doors in North Windham.
Hundreds of eager shoppers poured into the stores to peruse aisle after aisle of tools, home furnishings, appliances, and other odds and ends stacked high on racks for Lowe’s grand opening last Friday and Home Depot’s grand opening Thursday.
While Lowe’s and Home Depot will be competing for customers across the Route 302 divide, other appliance and hardware stores are hoping their small size will be a plus in offering better customer service and shopping experience.
These stores, along with non-competing businesses and the Sebago Lakes Chamber of Commerce, are optimistic that the home improvement giants will benefit the broader business community by drawing in thousands of potential shoppers from the Lakes Region and beyond.
“There’s nothing they can get down (near Portland) that they can’t get here,” says Gregg Tangen, Lowe’s new store manager. “I think it’s going to be a win for Windham.”
Tangen recently moved to Raymond from New Jersey to come set up and manage the new store.
Lowe’s has hired 117 employees so far, many of whom live in Windham or surrounding towns, he said. However, he couldn’t point to any exact figures.
These employees spent the last five weeks building racks, setting up displays, and stocking the shelves in preparation of Lowe’s opening.
Tangen said the competitive pricing and customer service will ultimately sway shoppers to come to Lowe’s instead of Home Depot. The store also specializes in do-it-yourself home design with professional designers on staff and special seminars on Saturdays to teach homeowners the trick of the trade.
And as a defector from the competing Home Depot, Tangen is excited for the “good friendly rivalry.”
And Home Depot welcomes the competition, says Anne Marie Gordon, store manager of the new Home Depot.
“It’s a healthy competition and there’s enough business here for both of us to survive,” she said.
The new Home Depot store in North Windham has been a longtime coming, said Gordon, and is proto-type store with an adjoining 20,000 square-foot garden center.
Home Depot has hired 120 employees to work at the store, roughly a 50/50 mix between veteran employees and new hires. From that 120, about 85 percent of the employees are from surrounding towns.
Gordon says bright atmosphere and customer service will draw people to Home Depot with local staff providing a familiar face. And like Lowe’s, they also have designers on staff to help consumers with any home improvement task.
So far, the business community has been welcoming and kind, said Gordon, even bringing them flowers and food for their staff.
Down the street from the home improvement giants, Aubuchon Hardware isn’t nervous about the big boys moving into town.
“We’ve noticed a little change, but not much,” said store manager Brett Needham.
Ranging from tools to dog food to nuts and bolts, Aubuchon offers 7,700 products, compared to the big stores 30,000 plus products, but his customers can get in, get service and get out opposed to wandering the aisles of the bigger stores.
Needham admits Aubuchon won’t be able to match some discounts offered by the giants with their buying power, but they will stay competitive.
“I can’t price match, but we pride ourselves on customer service and convenience,” he said. “That says a lot in itself.”
And on the day of Lowe’s grand opening, a customer came into Aubuchon looking for a 60 watts candelabra light bulb, Needham said, which he had a hard time finding at the big store. Needham found him the bulbs quickly, the customer paid and went on his merry way.
Bob Yates, owner of the Sear’s store in North Windham, is likewise not scared by the home improvement giants and says his store can meet or beat anybody’s prices. Sears is also the only store that carries the Kenmore brand, the highest-rated brand of appliance, he said.
“Our business has grown substantially in three years. We offer delivery and everything the big store can offer with a personal touch,” he said.
Because of his store deals with mainly appliances, he and his employees know their products intimately, something the larger stores with tens of thousands of products can’t boast about.
And Yate is optimistic that Lowe’s and Home Depot will be a benefit to the town and his personal business.
“(The new stores) should draw a lot more business into Windham,” he said, “where customers will be able to shop and compare.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
