Circle S Hardware
Success StoryCircle S Hardware Grows, Cut Costs with Paladin Tech, Support
When Heath Schultz purchased Circle S Hardware in Magnolia, Texas from his father Marvin in 2002 he knew he had a business on a solid foundation. Marvin and Adrian Selensky opened the store in 1993 to fill a need in Oklahoma Community, about 45 miles northwest of Houston.
Initially, the store featured a limited offering of hardware and tools, but over the years it expanded its product line. What began as a one-building operation on a half-acre grew to four buildings over 2 acres with a healthy customer following. Paladin Data Corporation helps his store and clientele continue to grow.
He ultimately chose Paladin for its simple, user-friendly point of sale system, its powerful ordering and inventory management programs, the low cost and easy transition, and it’s responsive 100% USA-based customer support.
Circle S brand itself as “way more than a hardware store” and its products and services certainly live up to that claim. The store’s offerings include lawn and garden, plumbing, electrical, home improvement products, culverts and septic supplies, hunting and fishing gear, sharpening services and U-Haul rentals. The store’s slogan is: “If we don’t have it, we’ll get it. If we can’t get it, they don’t make it.”
The product line and the staff’s “can-do” attitude is popular with customers. Paladin’s powerfully simple retail technology, along with hundreds of features and integrations that allow Heath to run his entire business, fits in perfectly.
“There were a lot of features that made the choice easy,” he says of his decision to choose Paladin.
Paladin technology’s simplicity was one of the main reasons Heath chose it. Having older employees who struggled with computers, the option to use the system with or without touch-screen monitors was huge. So to was its ability to email invoices and statements, import new inventory in just a few simple steps, and manage his customer rewards program and gift cards.
“The time and cost to operate and maintain our system has been reduced dramatically since implementation.”
Heath’s decision to go with Paladin wasn’t just about its hundreds of features and specialty software integrations. It also came down to dollars and sense. When he went live with Paladin, he immediately cut his monthly support costs by $600. Each time his previous provider rolled out new software, Heath said he and his staff spent too much time on the phone with support trying to figure out the new program. He said regular store transactions were fairly routine but trying to do anything else was “a nightmare.”
Paladin regularly rolls out its newest software, so its clients are automatically updated and are always running the latest programs.
“The time and cost to operate and maintain our system has been reduced dramatically since implementation,” he says.