A futuristic hardware store likely wouldn't look dramatically different from a retro hardware store. You've got hammers, nails, that omnipresent garden hose smell. Some things don't change. But some things do. A clerk whipping out a smartphone to price-check your purchase: a whiff of the future.
As such, customers at San Francisco Cole Hardware stores have, unknowingly, been treated to a vision of hardware shopping yet-to-be.
The San Francisco establishments are "alpha test sites" for Epicor, a business software firm previously known by the equally Terminator-worthy names of Activant and Triad. Doodads customers can see (the smartphone says your Wiffle Ball bat is $4.99!) and inventory programs they can't will soon grace thousands of Ace, True Value, and Do It Best hardware stores.
"We work with [Epicor] to test and design the new features," says Robin Miller, Cole's director of operations. Prior to working for the store, he was an engineer and designer for the Dublin-based Epicor. Accordingly, Cole Hardware's city locations are among only half a dozen stores serving as the tip of the tech spear for hardware software.
"Any hardware store in the nation you walk into, you might see something we had a hand in," Miller says.
So, San Franciscans can visit the future without leaving the city. And buy hammers.
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