Paint sales are local success story

Owners Randall Jones and Jamie Headley Jones pose with John Vernia, a Valspar sales representative, post with the award Headley Hardware received in October. Headley was the fifth-largest Do It Best Valspar retailer in the country last year.

Headley Hardware sells a lot of Valspar paint.

About 8,700 gallons every year.

It's enough to give every inch of Headley's 13,000-square-foot sales floor more than 230 coats of paint, or one coat every day and a half for a year. And enough to make Greencastle's oldest -- and only -- family-owned hardware store the fifth largest Do It Best Valspar seller in the country.

How does Headley move so much paint? The same way it has been able to stay successful in the face of a slumping local economy, the arrival of Wal-Mart, a devastating fire and the rise of national "big box" hardware chains, said the store's co-owner Randall Jones.

"When people come in they can expect three things: The price will be fair and honest, the service will be exemplary and the help will be better than you can ever get at a big box store," he said.

Headley Hardware, 841 Indianapolis Rd., received an award from Valspar for its paint sales at a ceremony in October.

All told, its sale of paint, brushes and other painting accessories account for about 20 percent of the store's revenue, said Jones, the son-in-law of store patriarch Jim Headley.

And its success in paint sales mirrors Headley's success in the rest of its business.

The hardware store offers discounts for house painters and contractors, giving them incentives to buy in volume and come back for more, Jones said.

And Jones said he has tried to be responsive to his customers' needs and aggressive about finding ways to help them do their jobs better.

A few years back, before his store began stocking Valspar, Jones said he realized that professional painters stopped buying their supplies from Headley because of the poor quality of the paint.

Jones called the paint manufacturer's executives into Headley's for a demonstration and showed that their paint was inferior to the brand the store was previously using, he said. The paint company executive promised to change the formula and fix the problem, but that didn't matter to Jones. The company had already lost Headley's business to Valspar.

And it's through being proactive and knowledgeable about its products -- from paint to plumbing to toilets and showerheads -- that the store has stayed successful, Jones said.

That's something customers won't find at Lowe's or Home Depot, he added.