Showrooms had become such an integral part of First Supply’s business model that in 1987 the decision was made to give the showrooms their own separate brand identity. They are named after Gerhard Poehling, who headed the company from 1940 until his retirement in 1980.
Showrooms had become such an integral part of First Supply’s business model that in 1987 the decision was made to give the showrooms their own separate brand identity. They are named after Gerhard Poehling, who headed the company from 1940 until his retirement in 1980.
Showrooms had become such an integral part of First Supply’s business model that in 1987 the decision was made to give the showrooms their own separate brand identity. They are named after Gerhard Poehling, who headed the company from 1940 until his retirement in 1980.
Showrooms had become such an integral part of First Supply’s business model that in 1987 the decision was made to give the showrooms their own separate brand identity. They are named after Gerhard Poehling, who headed the company from 1940 until his retirement in 1980.
Showrooms had become such an integral part of First Supply’s business model that in 1987 the decision was made to give the showrooms their own separate brand identity. They are named after Gerhard Poehling, who headed the company from 1940 until his retirement in 1980.

First Supply: No business like show(room) business!

April 12, 2016
Through Gerhard’s, its growing chain of kitchen and bath showrooms, First Supply is helping contractors satisfy their clients and homeowners realize their dreams.

For a professional plumbing contractor the supply house is the last place you want to take a homeowner in the middle of a kitchen or bathroom remodel. Yes, the supply house has a wide assortment of faucets, showerheads, bathtubs, etc., but it’s all in packaging. None of it looks the way you know it will when it’s installed. Your clients have nothing to go by but the picture on the side of the box. And it’s all grouped by brands or product codes making it difficult to comparison shop.

Katyhryn Poehling, the COO of the Kitchen and Bath Store Division of First Supply, understands.

“We recognize our tradespeople need a place that they’re comfortable sending their homeowners,” Poehling says. “As their jobs become more technical, they want to spend less time with Mrs. Homeowner standing in a showroom deciding whether she wants biscuit or almond.”

Poehling should know. She’s the fifth generation of her family to be involved in the plumbing supply business. “It never ceases to amaze me when I walk into a building and I meet a customer whose father had done business with my father, or his grandfather had done business with my grandfather,” Poehling says. “It’s amazing how tight some of these relationships are.”

A century in the trade

First Supply had its start in 1898 as the La Crosse Plumbing Supply Company, distributing wrought iron pipe, plumbing supplies, windmills, pumps and gasoline engines. In August of 1997 (after a series of acquisitions) the company became the First Supply Group, and in 2005 standardized the name across all locations as First Supply.
One of the 1898 founders was Henry Poehling. In 1940 his son, Gerhard — Kathryn Poehling’s grandfather — took over the family business. Gerhard proved to be a visionary leader and created the company’s first showrooms to display new products. In 1987 all company showrooms were given their own separate identity, Gerhard’s, in his honor.

The showroom spaces at Gerhard’s go well beyond racks of products. Installations that include fully-fledged kitchens give potential buyers a better idea of how the plumbing fixtures will work to complete a room.

“The industry was changing pretty quickly,” Kathryn Poehling says. “We needed to operate the kitchen and bath stores differently than we did the distribution company, or the wholesale portion of the business we’ve been running for nearly 120 years.”

Today there are more than a dozen Gerhard’s locations across the upper Midwest (which is not including their Kohler Signature Store in Edina, Minn.). The company’s success is a testament to the strong relationships it has built with contractors, manufacturers and homeowners.

Connecting people

Contractors not only send homeowners looking for just the right bathroom or kitchen component to Gerhard’s, a lot of time Gerhard’s is sending the customers to the contractors.

Thanks to websites like Pinterest, a lot of consumers are creating their dream kitchens and bathrooms on their own. “And they bring it to us,” Poehling says, “and they say, I have this million-dollar bathroom, and my budget is only $5,000, can you help? … And they don’t have a contractor. They have no concept of how it works, and we can help them find a trusted contractor. Someone to help them get the project done the way they need it done, and really help them close the loop.”

That two-way street between contractors and homeowners is part of what keeps First Supply investing in brick-and-mortar locations for its showrooms, even in an age of online shopping.

“We’re providing more value than we ever have to our tradespeople because these homeowners are finding us just walking in off the streets,” Poehling says. “We’ve opened three locations in just the last two years that are in much more retail-focused environments… where Mrs. Smith is running to Target or picking up furniture fabric or something like that. We’re moving into those areas, which mean consumers are finding us earlier in the project.”

Another reason for the investment is because when it comes to major purchases consumers want to see and feel for themselves.

“A kitchen or bath remodel is going to be one of a homeowner’s biggest purchases after the home itself,” Poehling says. “They want to have a lot of confidence in the product they choose and in the place they choose them. So it’s important to have a great place for them to come visit, where they can deal with an expert, where they feel comfortable, and where they can touch and feel the products.”

Bright future

The Gerhard’s kitchen and bath stores play a key role in First Supply’s business development goals. While the housing market has seen decent recovery, the new construction numbers are still lagging. That, combined with a body of homeowners still feeling economically conservative in the wake of the Great Recession means more and more people opting to remodel or remake the homes they are already in.

“A lot of homeowners had to tough it out during the harder times,” Poehling says. “Now, maybe they’ve paid off their mortgage… maybe they’ve gotten to know their neighbors that much better, maybe their kids have started school and they don’t want to move them. All those reasons people have for staying in a home. So we’re finding they want to remodel their homes more than build new ones.”

Also, the profile of the typical home buyer/owner is changing. The Millennial Generation has come late to such life milestones as starting a family and buying a home, but little by little they are entering the market, and the market is changing to accommodate them.

“The Millennial Generation, as they pick up their purchase power, they don’t necessarily want the McMansions, the cookie-cutter homes of the past, that were sometimes the best available choice for new construction at a certain price point,” Poehling says.

“They want a home that has more character or history or speaks to them a certain way,” she continues. “They want things that are beautiful, but also functional. They want to make sure that when they make a decision, that when they make an investment, that it’s for the long-term and that they do it right.”

While Gerhard’s prides itself on its wide selection, they are picky about the brands they carry.

Storied past

Poehling looks back on the 120-year history of her family’s company, and sees a story of success built on a chain of relationships.

As a distributor, a key link in that chain is the vendor. “All the brands we carry are very important to us. And we choose not to do business with everyone,” Poehling says. “We don’t have every brand faucet line that’s available. We make sure we choose the best and stick with them.”

And being headquartered in the Upper Midwest puts them in proximity to a wide number of those great American brands, among them Kohler (who they share a great deal of history with), Milwaukee Tool, Milwaukee Valve, Bemis and InSinkErator just to name a few.

The end link of the chain is, of course, the homeowner, and the push to expand and develop their showrooms has been about educating, delighting and connecting those end consumers.

But the middle link in the chain — and to Poehling perhaps the most important —  are the tradespeople that were her grandfather’s and her great-great-grandfather’s first customers.

“The professional trades are so integral to the health of our business because they can provide the longevity for us,” Poehling says. “They give us the confidence that we’re going to be here for five more generations. That my grandchildren will be doing business with their grandchildren… We really need the professional trades to reach the end user, and it’s important to us to provide value to them in return.”  

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