There’s a saying, “the family that plays together, stays together.” For the Pepperdines, though, it’s “the family that works together, stays together.” And they’ve been proving it for three generations in their family-run retail business, PM Hobbycraft, in Calgary. PM Hobbycraft was opened at Calgary’s North Hill Mall in 1956 by George Pepperdine and his wife, Sybil. It was an extension of an already-successful downtown business, PMS Camera, owned by George’s brother. The new store combined photography and hobby and crafts in a small 1000-square-foot sales area.
George and Sybil’s son Jim was 16 when store opened and began working there on weekends, continuing on full-time after he finished school. In 1974 George and Sybil retired and Jim and his brother Ted split the business into two stores, with Jim keeping the hobby and crafts side and Ted opening a separate camera store in the mall. When Jim married, his wife Ruth, an artist with a flair for crafts, joined him in running the store.
By 1979 the store had became too small and the rent too expensive for the business to continue to be as profitable as in prior years, and the store moved to a 2500-square-foot space in northeast Calgary. With continuing rent increases and the continuous need for even greater space, Jim and Ruth moved the store several times, however always remaining in the northeast part of the city. Three years ago they moved to their current location, the store’s sixth, which boasts a massive 12,000-square-foot main floor, making it one of the largest hobby and craft stores in North America. Jim explains the continual need for more space was due to the ever-increasing numbers of hobbies and product lines. “There are two directions a business can go, and that’s up or down, and we needed to expand to go up.”
Today, PM Hobbycraft’s inventory has nearly 40,000 different items, including radio controlled cars and airplanes and accessories, trains, rockets, die cast cars, plastic models, cake decorating, scrapbooking and art supplies, and an array of craft supplies.
This comprehensiveness is a big part of the store’s wide appeal. “Our focus has been the family,” Jim points out, “Dad can come in to look at radio-controlled airplanes and cars, but Mom and the kids have items that they can shop for as well.” Ruth adds, “and that was our main aim all through the store’s history is to make it for a family, not just a guy store. We’re a family store.”
Just before moving to their current location, the Pepperdines hired a manager for the store, Terry Alston, who had a background in grocery and crafts retail management. The family felt they needed the expertise an experienced retail professional could provide. “He brought with him an awful lot of knowledge as to store fixturing, staff management, and so on,” says Jim. “We weren’t educated, we sort of learned by the seat of our pants and learned the hard way in a lot of cases. And we thought this might help to take us to the next step.” Jim adds Alston stresses the importance of store appearance, “He preaches to us all the time that we want our store to look like opening day every day.”
Doug says he’s learned a great deal about merchandising from Alston. “We would put things on the shelf and think they looked pretty good, but you get someone who’s really good at merchandising coming in and they show you a lot of new things.” As is often the case, great retailers like the Pepperdines are always on a path of constant learning. With its ever increasing size, professional merchandising techniques, and huge inventory, it’s hard to believe this is a small business and not a big box store. Doug reflects, “I think about this all the time—are we a big box store or are we still a small business?”
The family agrees their business is somewhere in the middle, with similarities to both large and small stores. They feel their store is unlike a typical big box because it offers knowledgeable, personalized service, including special orders, and is always well-staffed.
Doug adds, laughing, “We’re a big box ‘mom and pop’ store! I think we care more. I’ve never worked for a big retailer, so my perspective is based on what I hear, but I think we’re a lot more personable.” Debbie, who has worked for large retailers, agrees. “I used to feel like a number. It was very different. I do feel like we care more about our staff and our customers. And our staff go the extra mile. That I haven’t seen in a lot of businesses.”
While they’re proud of the fact PM Hobbycraft still retains the feel of a small family business, the Pepperdines also have ambitions to expand. As a first step, they would like to begin selling merchandise online, and then open another store in south Calgary. They admit they are hesitant to open another store at the present time because of high rents and difficulty finding staff in the city’s tight labour market.
“Staffing is always on our minds,” says Doug. The store keeps 38 full- and part-time staff, not counting the family. In general, he explains, finding and keeping employees has not been too much of a problem because they hire people who are interested in the merchandise they are selling. “I think we’re pretty lucky. I think people really enjoy working here, I really do. And it’s a hobby store, we really can’t afford to pay a lot. Working in fast food you could probably make more. But people stay here.”
Debbie adds they are flexible with their staff, and try to accommodate needs for time off and schedule changes wherever possible. She also feels having special events for staff like barbecues and Christmas parties promotes good rapport. “We bend over backwards for them, and they do the same for us,” she says. “If you’re not happy, and your staff aren’t happy, there’s no business.”
“That’s where the family part comes in. That’s the way it’s always been,” interjects Ruth. And it looks like it will stay that way. Jim and Ruth are semi-retired, and have made arrangements to sell the business to Doug and Debbie. “It was pretty exciting for us,” says Debbie. “Scary, too,” adds Doug. The changeover is gradual, and, even though he has been on the payroll since he was twelve, Doug admits he prefers it this way as he values his parents’ support. Ruth explains that she and Jim have years of experience the younger Pepperdines can take advantage of. “It’s nice because if we’ve gone through it before we can caution Doug and Debbie and they take it into consideration,” she says.
While many would find working this closely with family members to be especially challenging, getting along with each other isn’t a problem for the Pepperdines. The family works together as a democratic management team, with no one person having more authority than another. When simple disagreements occur, they are settled by a vote. When more complex issues arise the family views openness as the best policy.
“We have our meetings,” Jim smiles, “We try and get out for a meeting at lunch once, sometimes twice a month, if there is something to discuss, and we try and discuss it in a rational, businesslike manner. And sometimes certain members have feelings about certain things. This has to be expressed. All in all, we get along amazingly well. And I got along very well with my parents when I was working in the store. My mother and I would clash once in a while, and we would agree to disagree on things. That was it, then it was on with the business, that was our point of focus.”
But focusing on business doesn’t mean not having any fun. A big part of PM Hobbycraft’s success comes from the Pepperdines’ own enthusiasm for hobbies and crafts, which has often found them participating alongside their customers. Jim has long been involved with model aircraft, and is currently Safety Chairman for the Model Aeronautics Society of Canada. He has volunteered with various organizations such as Cub Scouts, introducing model airplanes to new generations. “I think if you participate in this stuff you have a much greater understanding for your customer,” he says.
Doug’s interests are diverse. “Through the years I’ve dabbled with just about everything. The most recent item is trains. I don’t fly as much as I’d like to, but I love model airplanes, too.”
Ruth learned floral arranging and cake decorating while working at the store. For many years she has gone out into the community to teach crafts at schools, churches, and community centres. “It was partly for business, naturally,” she explains, “but we’re getting out in the community and in turn they’re coming back. And they get to know us one on one.”
Initially Debbie was hired to teach floral design classes, but she is also has a strong interest in and knowledge of cars, and has taken over managing the diecast car section of the store. As well, she’s recently taken up the notoriously difficult hobby of flying model helicopters.
Jim cautions, however, that it is crucial not to let one’s own interests dictate inventory. “You can’t fill the store with the stuff that you love, you have to fill the store with the stuff that your customers love. Sometimes that’s a little tricky.” He adds that it’s important to stay in touch with customer wants, and in a store that has been in business for so long, this involves being aware of changing interests and lifestyles. “Change with the people,” Jim advises, “We’ve always done that. We’ve always tried to stay on the leading edge and gotten rid of the old stuff in a hurry.”
A major trend the Pepperdines have seen is recent years is a demand for pre-built model cars and airplanes. “Nobody has time anymore,” Debbie explains. Jim agrees, “We hardly have any kits that you build anymore. Ours are all almost ready to fly or run right out of the box. We’ve sort of gone with the flow, not our own personal interests. I still like to build things, personally, but I can’t stock for that.”
Staying current has been essential, because, as the number of people who have time for hobbies and crafts shrinks, so does the number of hobby stores. According to Jim, however, while there is competition in the business, it isn’t cutthroat. “There’s enough competition to keep our prices fair,” he laughs. “And we get along well with our competition. We compete, but we talk to each other, and we refer to each other. We’ve never tried to tell our customers there’s no other hobby store.”
Ruth explains local hobby stores often work together, sending business each others way, networking when there are theft problems, and complementing each other by filling different niches in the market, rather than attempting to force each other out.
The staying power of the Pepperdines in a continuously changing market is something to be proud of. Now is an exciting time for the family, with the purchase of the business by Doug and Debbie, and the news PM Hobbycraft was recognized as the 2005 Hobby Store of the Year by the National Retail Hobby Stores Association. With nearly fifty years in business, the Pepperdines have weathered a lot of change, but view this as inevitable and natural. “We’ve enjoyed a lot of the ups and downs, that is, we’ve enjoyed the ups and experienced the downs in our economy,” Jim says. “We’re certainly enjoying this particular time. But we’re not losing sight of the fact that it could turn the other way and we may have to adjust. We have over the years always adjusted.”
And where will PM Hobbycraft go from here? The Pepperdines hope it will stay in the family. Doug and Debbie have two children aged 12 and 14 who have already started working in the store, and, while it’s a little soon to tell, who knows—maybe there will be a fourth generation in charge some day.
