Community Corner

Rockville Hardware Still a Fixture After 26 Years

Dave and Christine McDonald gave up their Wall Street jobs about 26 years ago to open Rockville Hardware, which has served the community at 263 Merrick Rd. for most of that time.

Patch recently spoke to Dave, who worked at a hardware store as a teenager, about running the oldest hardware store in the village.

What’s the secret to your success?

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The products you get here, you can get anywhere. But where we think we make a difference is in the level of service that we provide. We do a lot of repair work with screen and storm windows and lamp repairs. We sell general hardware, and provide the advice that goes along with it.

How do you compete with bigger stores?

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When we started this, there were already Home Depots in the area, so that wasn’t a major concern. I always thought we were sort of like a deli to a supermarket. It’s a little bit more accessible without having to travel. We were the smaller alternative with personalized service.

There was another store in Rockville Centre that was doing what we were doing, but over time, we captured an audience through friends and families. It’s always been word of mouth. We do rely on a lot of local businesses to support us. That’s how we’ve been able to be successful at it and hopefully we continue.

What are some of your challenges?

The challenge doesn’t really change every day. It’s really bringing in new people. The older generation, going back 25 years, a lot of those people have retired and moved away. They’ve been replaced by the younger generation who are more inclined to go to the internet or look for the “best price” without leaving their office or home.

That’s a problem for us because we can’t live on the service end of the business or the scraps that come from someone buying the garden hose on Amazon and buying the washers here when needed. We’re no different from any other business around here.

The biggest battle we face, like every other retailer around here, is parking and accessibility. The fact that we’re a small operation, we can’t be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. We pick our hours and pick our spots, we think we do a pretty good job with that with a six-day week.

I still think in this area that there should be short-term parking for the post office, and it’d benefit me greatly if it was in front of our store.

What’s your best-selling item?

The biggest sellers for us change daily. We inventory 6,000 different items. Our biggest market segment from a dollar standpoint is probably lightbulbs.


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