Paoli Hardware Center Owner Marks Advantage Over "Big Guys"

Small town businesses may seem like the mouse compared to the lion of large corporations. But the owner of Paoli's Hardware Center said his store has an edge over “the big guys."

The one-stop shop, founded by Cordine Scartozzi of Strafford, has been serving the Tredyffrin-Easttown and Malvern communities for more than six decades. Cordine’s two sons, Greg and Steve Scartozzi, took over ownership of the business though they have been employees since the age of 12. They continue to maintain the small town appeal by showing friendly faced employees up front and cherishing the odd job.

“When you’re brought up in a business, you work in the business,” Greg Scartozzi said.

He took on the store to keep the second generation of the business going, and noted that it has provided both convenience and jobs for hundreds of families over the years. Some of the employees have been working at the store for 20-40 years. In addition, many local kids have had their first job at the Hardware Center.

Greg Scartozzi noted that even as society shifts toward “going green,” people are typically quicker to dispose of something than repair it. His business cuts down on landfills by offering services that have become a rarity nowadays, such as fixing a lamp cord, sharpening a tool or repairing a screen door.

“No one else wants to do all of those little things for the household,” he said. “Society is getting to the point where they throw everything out. We fix things.”

The shop’s relatively small size can be an advantage to both the consumer and the Scartozzi family, he told TE Patch. For instance, the bigger corporations take more time and use more resources to stock new products on the shelves, whereas the smaller stores can order and change inventory more quickly.

Additionally, large corporations exert time and labor into public advertising, and many consumers do not turn to bigger stores for new products until they are featured on a news outlet like “The Today Show,” Scartozzi said.

“Because we’re small, we can change rapidly. The big guys can’t because they take too long to make a move,” he said. “Whatever the hot item was for Christmas, we’ve already had it. Once it gets bigger, we stop selling it, because we can’t compete with the big guys. They discount it to the point that they’re throwing it away.”

The Hardware Store earned its “one-stop shop” title by operating with several “niches.” For instance, the store shelves contain anything from toys to patio furniture, garden supplies and produce.

The produce sales were spontaneous, Scartozzi said. The store offers several seasonal items, like flowers during the spring, and Scartozzi ordered tomatoes from the same vendor one summer. His family didn’t eat all of them, so his wife suggested that he sell the additional fruits at the store.

“People bought them and would come back the following week asking ‘Do you have any more? Those were good’,” he said.

Currently, the store sells roughly 15,000 pounds of tomatoes per year, along with summer items such as peaches, apples and corn on the cob.

Scartozzi said that his family’s store does not plan to make an exit any time soon. The customer service and convenience that the store offers is invaluable to the community.

“You can go to the big guys, stand in line and try to find somebody who knows something,” he said. “Or here, you can walk in and somebody is waiting at the door and says ‘How can I help you?’”