2026 Beacon Awards: Hitching Onto a Bigger Idea
Three times in one week, customers walked into Big Rapids Cash & Carry looking for a trailer hitch. Each time, the answer was essentially the same: We’re a lumberyard. We’re not a hardware store.
To owner David VanderWeele, the encounters pointed to a larger problem. He had purchased the Big Rapids, Michigan, business in 2020 and saw an established lumberyard with strong contractor relationships, but also a model that left a sizable portion of the local market walking past its doors.
“I looked at the pure mathematics,” VanderWeele says. “There are 2,000 DIY customers compared to one pro. I saw pretty quickly that we needed to diversify the company.”
The trailer hitches became symbolic of the opportunity. VanderWeele invested nearly $1 million in a renovation and rebranding that culminated in 2023 with a new identity: Big Rapids Lumber & Hardware.
That transformation—and the measurable results it has produced—have earned Big Rapids Lumber & Hardware the 2026 Beacon Award for Best New Store.
Making Room for a New Customer
VanderWeele came to hardware retail after a career that included insurance and a Valvoline auto store, where he gained experience running companies and studying category management. Across those businesses, he says he learned a lesson that shaped his approach in Big Rapids.
“The craft is not about the product or service. It’s a people business,” he says. “Continue to help people solve their problems, and the product kind of works itself out.”
When VanderWeele purchased the business, the store was heavily dependent on contractors, who represented about 90% of its business. He wanted to preserve those relationships while making homeowners feel equally welcome.
His timing proved prescient. VanderWeele says the business was in the process of shedding about half of its longtime pro customers to retirement and some additional attrition. Today, contractors account for about two-thirds of business, with homeowners representing the remaining third.
The physical store changed to support that broader customer base: 4-foot shelving gave way to 8-foot fixtures that effectively doubled merchandising capacity. Lighting was doubled, aisles widened and carts and baskets added. One checkout became four, while barcode scanning, individual employee email addresses and a modernized phone system eliminated some of the friction VanderWeele found when he arrived.
New or greatly expanded plumbing, electrical, lawn-and-garden, paint, hardware and tool assortments gave customers more reasons to visit.
VanderWeele drew on his category-management background to determine space allocations, product placement and adjacencies. He also chose to emphasize better and best products and recognizable national brands rather than competing primarily on opening price points.
The Milwaukee department illustrates one of the biggest payoffs. Big Rapids expanded what had been about a 6-foot presentation into a destination area of about 30 feet. After Milwaukee (including the Packout product line the store wanted to promote) was moved to a more prominent location, sales from the area increased nearly 40%.
Turning Projects Into Possibilities
Perhaps no department better captures the new Big Rapids Lumber & Hardware than its kitchen and bath design center.
The service existed before VanderWeele purchased the company, but the department received virtually no marketing. Relying on expertise from his co-op, Do it Best, he made “Kitchen & Bath Design Center” part of the company’s branding and began promoting an operation he believed competitors couldn’t easily match.
Today, he says kitchen and bath accounts for about a third of total sales and is among the company’s most profitable departments.
It also fits his favorite description of the business: “Disney World for homeowners,” he calls it.
“We make people’s dreams come true,” he says. “A person’s home is their largest purchase. They work extremely hard their entire life and save money to do the kitchen they’ve dreamed about or the bathroom they’ve always wanted.”
That project-oriented approach has expanded further through construction services; VanderWeele told the Awards Gala audience in Orlando, Florida, that he has already booked work into next June.
The transformation has produced results behind the scenes as well. Gross margin, once about 17%, has averaged about 28% over the past 24 months. A shift toward more disciplined purchasing and just-in-time inventory reduced annual inventory carrying costs by nearly $400,000, while sales per employee increased 18%.
The store’s reach has expanded, too. Customers who once came from a service radius of about 40 miles now request deliveries as far as 150 miles away.
Those numbers help explain why VanderWeele believes diversification was essential. When the building materials market fell sharply, Big Rapids kept sales roughly flat despite building materials representing nearly 70% of its business.
The transformation continues. VanderWeele credits Do it Best with providing resources, training, marketing support and access to fellow independent retailers while allowing him to determine the direction of his own company.
When accepting the Best New Store Award, he offered a challenge to fellow independent hardware retailers competing against national chains with vastly larger marketing budgets.
“It’s easy for us to get intimidated by big boxes,” he told the audience. “I personally think it’s time they start getting intimidated by us.”
For Big Rapids Lumber & Hardware, VanderWeele’s confidence now has a nearly $1 million transformation—and a growing list of stellar performance metrics—behind it.
