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LANCASTER COUNTY
It can't be easy to hide a 60,000-square-foot warehouse behind a hardware store, but that's just what the folks at PaulB Wholesale have managed to do, albeit unintentionally.
"Whenever people around here think of the name 'PaulB,' they think of our hardware operation just offMain Street in Ephrata," Jim Wall, marketing manager of the wholesale side of the business, says with a laugh. "The store has a pretty high profile from serving local farmers, contractors and homeowners since 1947, so it's understandable. But even though we became a separate entity in 2012, we're still hidden behind the store, literally and figuratively."
You wouldn't think so, judging from its success story. With a 30 percent increase in revenue last year, from $8.2 million in 2013 to $10.7 million in 2014, General Parts Manager James Hostetter Jr. calls PaulB Wholesale one of Lancaster County's "best-kept secrets."
The company also saw its operations and sales staffincrease from 10 to 27 employees since 2012.
A supplier specializing in agricultural, industrial and mechanical parts, PaulB Wholesale delivers products all over Pennsylvania and elsewhere, from sprayers, pumps and nozzles to trailer parts, welding supplies and power transmissions. PaulB Wholesale is a division of the Paul B. Zimmerman Inc. family of companies, which also includes hardware store PaulB LLC, e-commerce operation PaulB...