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ORLANDo, FLA. - It may be a while before Robert Hastings gets back to working on his golf game.
The transplanted Australian businessman is spending nearly all of his time these days getting the 20 smaller stores he acquired from Scotty's on Jan. 28 into shape. All 20 are undergoing a complete remodeling and remerchandising to return them to what Hastings calls "their hardware roots." Hastings' efforts are being supported by Do it Best, the dealer-owned buying group that has supplied the store design, computers and products, and will handle the stores' replenishment once the operation is fully reopened in late July or early August.
The 51-year-old Hastings, a 5-foot 6-inch dynamo with an indefatigable spirit, now finds himself scheduling painters and tilers, haggling with landlords and encouraging 117 store employees whose demoralization under Scotty's had approached despair. What he's trying to do - create a mid-sized hardware-store chain in a state dominated by Home Depot and Lowe's - may seem folly to some, especially after Scotty's disastrous conversion of these stores into bargain outlets whose product mix included everything from pantyhose to dolls. But don't tell Hastings that.
"You have to create your own identity, and I think we're actually five years ahead of most startups because we took over a going concern," he stated confidently, while leaning back into a huge couch in the living room of his 5,000-square-foot home here.
That house is serving as Hastings Hardware's temporary offices until it moves into more permanent digs this month. Hastings' 40-year-old American-- born wife, Leslie, is perched behind an ever-growing bank of personal computers. She helped design the company's Web site and is serving as her husband's right hand in this fledgling enterprise. "It's been exciting and fun," she said, with a wry smile.
Stores had become 'a joke'
Fun is hardly the word that Hastings Hardware's employees would use to describe Scotty's failed attempt to inject new life into its chain of differentsized stores by adding a volatile mixture of closeout merchandise. The larger stores could more easily absorb these products, but as much as 80 percent of the smaller stores' inventory became nonhardware products.
"The customers saw us as a joke," said John Baluha, a 10-year Scotty's veteran who manages...