• Chicago Tribune, Friday, June 4, 2010 10:35 AM

The intrepid Sandra M. Jones travels to a hardware store in Mount Prospect, Ill., that, set as it is in a strip mall surrounded by 1960s split-level homes, may look like it's out of the cookie-cutter mold of True Value outlets. But it's not. It's the Chicago-based hardware cooperative's first corporate-owned store, she writes, a skunk works of sorts where company executives can get a feel for what its independent store owners go through every day and experiment with new ideas.

Not only that, it also makes a dedicated effort to appeal to the shoppers who wield the most influence. "Women are the majority of home-improvement shoppers and make the majority of home-improvement decisions," says Marti Barletta, president of the TrendSight Group. "Men tend to repair this and that. Women tend to take on the projects that involve 'let's redo the bathroom' or 'let's redo the cabinets.'"

Jones finds color-coded signs that make it easy to navigate the store, wider aisles, brighter overhead lights, an expanded assortment of decorative door knobs and drawer pulls and a can't-miss paint store as soon as you walk in the door. "This is a lab for us," says True Value CEO Lyle Heidemann, "It's about, 'How can we help our retailers become more efficient?'"

Read the whole story at Chicago Tribune »