Small Business

6 Pages 1471 Words

Clark and Barlow
An economic perspective.



Background:
Clark and Barlow a privately owned company has 3 locations in Illinois. It’s headquarters are at the retail outlet on West Grand Ave in downtown Chicago, the 2nd retail outlet is in Des Plaines and the 3rd is at 503 North East Street in Bloomington. For the purposes of this paper I will focus on the Bloomington location.
Clark and Barlow has been serving architects, designers, contractors and homeowners since 1894.
The Bloomington location has been a hardware store since Kaiser Van Leer opened in 1869. The last living principle of the Keiser-Van Leer Association, Mrs. B.C. Van Leer, willed the annual net proceeds of the business be donated to the Immanuel Bible Foundation of Normal for a period of 20 years after her death. At the end of the 20 years the business was to be sold with the proceeds going to the foundation. In 1969, 20 years after she died, Keiser-Van Leer was sold to Clark and Barlow making it the company’s 3rd store in Illinois.

Products and Services:

Clark and Barlow distributes more than 100,000 items from over 500 manufacturers worldwide. They have a full staff of hardware consultants, trained at architectural schools around the world. Clark and Barlow offers a wide variety of items including nuts and bolts, plumbing supplies, power tools, high-end decorative hardware and very obscure hard to find items, for example they have a 6 foot tall chain pipe wrench hidden away in their storage area.
Clark and Barlow’s main customer base is the building contractor, however they also offer products via retail sales to the individual homeowner. Contractors have known about and patronized Clark and Barlow for many years, the average home owner has not been aware of them until recently. The store in Bloomington recently renovated a section of the 2nd floor of the building to accommodate showroom of high-end decorative hardware. The new showroom...