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Featured Customer
By Curtis Hicks, National Sales Manager
 UEI is proud to spotlight and introduce to you one of our most cherished customers, Hershberger's Hardware Ltd. Hershberger's Hardware is located in Baltic, OH; a beautiful area in central Ohio characterized by it's rolling hills and beautiful farm lands. Hershberger's is a true success story. It was started by a one man finishing shop, Eli Hershberger, the father of the current owner, Robert Hershberger. Eli Hershberger operated an antique refinishing business called Farmerstown Furniture Repair from 1971 - 1990. Eli was always in need of reproduction handles and knobs for the furniture he repaired. He would buy these items from a mail order company in Kentucky and would stock some extra pieces for later use. By word of mouth, people started stopping in at Eli's business to pick up hardware to repair their own furniture. In 1987 the mail-order company in Kentucky where Eli purchased his hardware decided to sell out and Eli considered buying the business. Robert Hershberger was 16 years old at the time and was looking for work; so he and his father made the trip to Kentucky and after meeting with the owners decided to buy the company. After bringing home the mailing and supplier list and lots of inventory, the Hershberger family was in the antique reproduction hardware business. Their customer base consisted of antique and refinish shops. Being Amish themselves, the majority of their business came from other Amish communities.
Eli and Robert changed the name to Farmerstown Hardware and Supply. They published their first catalog in 1987 and have published a new one every 1 to 2 years every since. They only processed 2 to 6 orders per day in the early years. To promote their business, Robert's father would attend annual wood worker "get-togethers" and pass out catalogs to all the Amish shops.
In 1992 Robert married Dorothy Yoder. Dorothy had worked previously in her father's mail order buggy parts business so she had a lot of experience packaging orders which has been a great help throughout the years, especially the early years. By this time, Eli had started a retail furniture business and was putting most of his focus on that while Robert ran the hardware business. Around 1994, Robert and Dorothy bought out the mail order hardware business and become the sole owners, renaming the company Hershberger's Hardware Ltd. In December 1995, they moved to their current location. At that time, they had a 30 x 50 building housing the hardware on one end and living quarters on the other end. In 1996 Hershberger expanded their business to include modern types of hardware. They also started doing local deliveries to the Amish shops near their home in addition to the mail order business. By 1998, their growth necessitated they add another 30 x 40 warehouse. They started phasing out the antique reproduction hardware all together and added items that appealed to the Amish and Mennonite cabinet and furniture builders.
Uneeda Enterprizes, Inc. came into the picture in 2003. Uneeda had just hired a new distribution manager, Curtis Hicks. Curtis had been on the job only a few weeks when he saw Hershberger's booth at a trade show in Columbus, OH. Hungry for new business and knowing the potential of the Amish woodworking market, Curtis pursued Robert pretty aggressively. Robert didn't sell a line of sandpaper and really didn't want too. As Robert likes to tell it, he turned Uneeda down on seven different occasions before he finally agreed to give it a shot. As with anything new, it was quite a struggle at first; but after 6 months of hard work, this new partnership really began to take traction. Within a year, Hershberger's was stocking enough sandpaper, in addition to his hardware, that he was running out of room. So, a year after picking up the Uneeda line, Robert built a 70 x 125 steel structure that now houses the office, shipping and warehouse. Having come a long way from the early years when they only processed a few orders a day, Hershberger's Hardware now boasts sales in the millions and sell many items in addition to hardware to include, Uneeda Sandpaper, KV & Blum drawer slides, Space Balls, Dutch Bond Glue, specialty lighting products, Kreg Tool, wood knobs, spindles, zap glue, screws, casters, etc. They stock well over 1500 part numbers.
Hershberger's now has seven employees and has shown tremendous growth in sandpaper sales over the last 5 years becoming one of the top 5 producing distributors for Uneeda Enterprizes, Inc. We are proud to have Hershberger's as a customer, but more importantly, we are privileged to have developed a lasting friendship with Robert Hershberger and his family. We look forward to many more years of success together.
If you would like to contact Hershberger's Hardware or would like to receive a free catalog, please give them a call. They will be happy to accommodate you.
Hershberger's Hardware
Robert Hershberger
1411 T.R. 178
Baltic, OH 43804
330-897-7701
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