How to Revitalize & Reinvent Business with C/I Sales
By Doug Donaldson —
With new, bolstered ecommerce capabilities, the current generation of Hacienda Home Center ownership saved a longtime New Mexico family business by cultivating commercial, industrial and government customers.
With new, bolstered ecommerce capabilities, the current generation of Hacienda Home Center ownership saved a longtime New Mexico family business by cultivating commercial, industrial and government customers.
What had Gary and Joe Sanchez gotten themselves into? In 2015, the cousins took over operations of the family business, Hacienda Home Centers, a two-store operation based in north-central New Mexico. The business wasn’t thriving. Once boasting a half dozen locations, the company had downsized in the face of encroachment from big-box retailers.
HHC Supply can meet all the product needs of commercial, industrial and government customers.
If the family business was to survive, it needed a new direction. Through research, connecting with customers and steadfast support from their distributor, Do it Best, Gary and Joe found a new path with commercial, industrial and government customers. And the duo continue to reinvent the business, recently turning to ecommerce as a way to boost retail sales and provide convenience for commercial, industrial and government customers.
“The best business decision we’ve ever made was to go after government and commercial contractors,” Gary says. “Home Depot and Lowe’s were taking away from our residential business. The commercial, industrial and government business added a new kind of diversity, which enabled us to open a new store in 2021.”
While at the company’s original location in Española, N.M., Joe had secured business from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the site where the atomic bomb was developed in the 1940s and where extensive government research continues.
In 2020, the Sandia National Laboratories, a federal research lab in Albuquerque, approached Gary and Joe to provide building materials and hardware. That spurred the duo to open a new Albuquerque location, called HHC Supply, which would be devoted to supporting commercial, industrial and government customers. With store layout and merchandising plans from Do it Best, the store opened in January 2021.
This big step cemented the company’s new direction. The 5,000-square-foot Albuquerque location is already feeling growing pains and may soon expand next door. The two were also expanding online, offering ecommerce to retail customers.
Gary Sanchez has made sure their three stores carry on the family tradition of service to customers.
