Roseville Retailer's Operating System: Independent and Bucking the Big-Box Competitors

When Best Buy's Roseville store opened at midnight on the tail end of Thanksgiving day; a small independent computer retailer a short distance away had no thought of entering the fray for Black Friday shoppers. 

Sommerfeld's Computer Revolution, 2335 Fairview Ave. N., made the smallest of adjustment to its holiday hours: It opened at 9 a.m. instead of its usual 10 a.m. on the nation's biggest shopping day of the year.

And there weren't any huge doorbuster sales.

"We don't have the ability to take a loss on a specific item," said Mark Sommerfeld, co-owner of Computer Revolution, which is his independent spinoff from his former Computer Renaissance franchise. "We offer consistently great pricing on the products we sell."

For example, Computer Revolution's prices on computer cables are typical 25 percent less than what is charged by big-box retailers, Sommerfeld recently told Roseville Patch.

Meanwhile, another key attribute of Computer Revolution "is we are service driven," Sommerfeld.

The store handles computer repair work inhouse, generally providiing for one-day turnaround, said Paul Ginther, a consultant to Computer Revolution and head of West 7th Street Marketing in Bloomington."We have close to 10,000 computer parts. We don't have to wait for parts to come in or be shipped. We have built a niche being a service organization."

And while Computer Revolution will never match the market share of a Best Buy, Sommerfeld said his store profits from the experiences of dissatisfied big-box shoppers.

'The store also carries a wide variety of computer products. In its 3,000 square-foot store, Computer Revolution carries some 20,000 products, or what retailers call SKUs,  including about 50 to 100 different varieties and models of new, used and refurbished laptop computers, Sommerfeld said.

Sommerfeld said that he took his computer store independent in 2006 to better meet the demands of local consumers rather than be directed by a corporate central office.

"This allows us to be much more flexible and to bring the products and services that are in demand in this market," Sommerfeld said.

In serving consumers and other businesses, Computer Revolution finds it sales are pretty steady throughout the year. The shop's annual sales are more than $1 million.

Still, the holiday season is important and Computer Revolution generally sees a 15 to 20 percent increase in customer traffic this time of the year. And Sommerfeld said he expects holiday sales this year to be a few percentage points up compared with the same period a year ago. (The so-called "same store sales" are a key indicator of a retailer's financial health). 

One of Computer Revolution's satisifed customers is Rick Lobejko, who has been patronizing Sommerfeld's store since the 1990s. An IT technology director, Lobejko said he nearly always finds what he needs at Computer Revolution.

And if it the item isn't in stock, "they (Computer Revolution) can get it," he said.