Marcus Lumber Hopes Recent Expansion Turns Store Into ‘Destination Retailer’
Lisa Frye of Storm Lake, Iowa, drove nearly an hour Monday to check out Marcus Lumber Company’s new and improved store and she wasn’t disappointed. “I think it looks awesome,” she said. “I love all the models.”
The home improvement store named after the Cherokee County town it is housed in recently underwent an extensive remodel and expansion aimed at making the family-owned business a destination retailer akin to Cabela’s or Nebraska Furniture Mart, writes Ty Rushing in the Sioux City Journal.
“We’re trying to be a dealer where we can draw people in from a large area,” said Grant Leavitt, a fourth-generation member of the Leavitt family, which has owned the 137-year-old business since 1920. The business is a member of Do it Best Corp.
Entering the 25,500-square-foot store, visitors see the typical markings of a hardware store: Tools and accessories on one side of the building and a cashier/office area on the other. However, where Marcus Lumber starts to stand out is in its wide center aisle, which provides a direct path to the store’s immersive and expansive showroom aka its “wow factor.”
Grant Leavitt shows off what he calls the “wow factor” at Marcus Lumber Co. After about a year of construction, the home improvement store in the Cherokee County town completed a major expansion and overhaul of the store.
Entering the area, customers can find a window center with 30 installed models on display that look like they were sawed off of a house and drug into the store. This portion of the showroom also features home-like structures equipped with siding and stone, 80 types of doors including exterior, interior, patio and storm doors and a composite deck complete with artificial turf and photorealistic picturesque view of a quaint forest.
Although Marcus Lumber offers the traditional browsing options often found in similar stores such as paint swatches and catalogs, the Leavitts wanted to offer next level product visualization to customers.
“Customers have a hard time making decisions,” Grant Leavitt said. “So we tried to create as realistic set-ups as possible.”
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