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Belletetes hardware sees sales uptick despite outbreak

JAFFREY – With the governor’s stay-at-home order in place until May 4, and as we enter week 2 of the new normal, folks are considering painting the walls, which seems like a pleasant alternative to climbing them.

Some people are using their extra time at home to get home improvement projects completed and are running to the local hardware store to pick up supplies for those do-it-yourself projects.

Mike Shea, president of Belletetes, a popular independent hardware and building product specialist in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, said there’s been an increase in sales throughout their locations, including the Jaffrey store, located at 51 Peterborough St., also the locale of their corporate headquarters. (Other New Hampshire locations include Sunapee, Peterborough, Keene and Nashua.)

“We’ve been busy,” he said. “Nashua’s certainly our most urban location. And there have been a lot of people coming into our stores that we don’t necessarily recognize and that we don’t believe we’ve seen before. Our guess is that they’re coming to us because they want to avoid a more crowded place like the big box stores.”

With a boom in sales across the board, Shea said employees are being particularly careful about the person-to-person spread of COVID-19.

“Some of the employees are on higher alert, and that’s a well-founded concern,” he said. “But in the last week or so there has been a big change in social distancing, where people really seemed to be taking it to heart, understanding the concerns and fears of the people around them as well as taking care of themselves.”

Building materials have seen an increase in sales, as contractors stockpile materials for jobsites that they’re currently working on or new ones on the horizon.

“They want to make sure that if we either closed or were forced to close, that they would have product to be able to continue and complete their jobs,” Shea said.

Paint is the other big attraction, as customers have been comparing colors and paint swatches. Shea noted that with a spike in sales, there’s pause for concern.

“Our paint sales have definitely seen an increase,” he said. “When people realized that they might be home for a while, they were coming in and getting prepared for projects and there is a little bit of concern there for us in general.”

While Shea certainly appreciates that the store has been identified as an essential business, mass shoppers in a smaller store sometimes make the staff a little uncomfortable.

“It definitely makes the employees uneasy when customers come in and are either browsing or trying to figure out what they might need for a project,” he said “Personally, I love people coming into our stores, any other time when they’re doing these ‘DIY’ projects. But right now, as a company, we would really prefer visits to our store would be more purposeful and that they were for essential items.”

With an upswing in the temp and weather close to perfect for opening windows and airing out the house, sprucing up a room or two with a fresh coat of paint is on the minds of many a shopper.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Shea admitted. “We’re grateful for the business for sure, but it just makes employees more cautioned.”

With approximately 300 employees at nine locations, Shea noted that the company has had several employees that have preferred not to work during the current health pandemic.

“They just said they weren’t going to come in because they didn’t feel it was in their best interests and we said okay,” he said.

To help ease crowding inside their stores — rather than limiting customer entry — Belletetes has suggested other purchasing options to ease foot traffic inside.

“We’ve tried things, like suggesting strongly that people place their orders over the phone or emailed them in for curbside pick-up or delivery,” Shea explained. “But in hardware, that can be challenging because a lot of time people come into the store and they have a problem and they’re looking for a solution. And they don’t really know specifically what product or products are going to provide that solution until they get advice.”

While by all accounts Belletetes is one of the success stories during this crisis, Shea said no one really know the outcome of things.

“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on the other side of this,” he said.

Hopefully sooner than later.