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Ollie's Bargain Outlet Opens Boardman Store
BOARDMAN, Ohio -- The ribbon cutting for the new Ollie’s Bargain Outlet likely qualifies as among the briefest in Mahoning Valley history.
“We’re not much for long speeches,” said Scott Osborne, director of stores for the deep discounter, to the shoppers lined up Wednesday morning outside the chain’s new Boardman Plaza store for its 9 a.m. opening. “We’re just going to get you out of the cold and get some great bargains, OK?”
At the end of the three-count that followed, Osborne joined other Ollie’s employees to snip the ribbon strung across the store’s entrance and welcome the dozens of customers, their ranks stretched around the building’s corner.
“We’re an extreme discounter,” he said. “There’s two things that we’re known for: our brand names and our low prices.”
The store features a wide array of merchandise, from clothing to toys to rugs, all closeouts, factory seconds, liquidations and overruns. “It’s anything that we can get with a brand name and a great price for the consumer,” Osborne said.
The Boardman Plaza Ollie’s is the chain’s third in this region. Headquartered in Harrisburg, Pa., the retailer got its start in Mechanicsburg in 1982, Osborne said. It opened a store in New Castle in 2005 and at the Eastwood Mall Complex in Niles four years ago, and has grown to more than 140 stores nationwide.
Osborne attributes Ollie’s vast growth in recent years in part to national economic conditions. “We buy cheap and we sell cheap. It’s a simple business proposition,” he said. “It’s great for the consumer where that dollar nowadays has to stretch that much further for the American family.”
Ollie’s is known for its book department, which features pretty much every author in America, Osborne boasted. The department includes collections of authors such as Edgar Allen Poe through selections by more contemporary writers. “But you’ll find things like Tide detergent. You’ll find Levi’s jeans. You’ll find a huge selection of oriental carpets and remnant rugs,” he said.
“In today’s day and age, customers are looking for the bargains and there’s always bargains out there and this is a great company to find them with,” affirmed Ken North, store team leader. North, who said he has been in retail for 20 years, started at the Niles store four years ago.
“We can actually provide for our customers. A lot of companies talk about it, but we’ve got it,” he added.
The Boardman store, which will employ 55, “met the economic structure we look for,” Osborne said.
At 32,000 square feet, the sales floor is “slightly bigger” than the normal Ollie’s location. “But we needed it bigger because of the population density in the area. We wanted to make sure that we had enough product for the customers to get some great deals,” he remarked.
Among Wednesday’s first customers was Laurel Zoldan of Canfield. Never having heard of Ollie’s before, she decided to check it out after seeing an advertisement about the opening.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s pretty busy right now,” she remarked. “I’ll probably come back when it’s not as busy.”
Karen Laffey of Boardman, who said she lives close enough to walk to the new store, said she has visited the Niles location. “They offer a variety of different things and the pricing seems to be good. It’s great for this area,” she said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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