SALT LAKE CITY — With Utah receiving more snow this season than in years past, hardware stores are busier than usual trying to keep up with people’s needs.
“When you need your snow shovel, you need your shovel,” said Larry Britton, who lives in Bountiful.
It’s been a pretty busy winter across the state. “We’re down to just a little bit here. Probably had about three times as much at one point,” said Mike Pagel, said the assistant manager at ACE hardware in downtown Salt Lake.
ACE Hardware does have some supplies left, but those are dwindling. “We’ve never been out of stock, but there are certain SKUs or shovels may be that all of a sudden you’re just out of, so you have to get some more of those or find a different snow shovel or snow sled or something like that,” said Pagel.
With stores trying to keep up with things people need. “We’ve completely run out of snow shovels and brushes for vehicles, trying to get more. We still do have plenty snow ice melts. We’ve been able to keep that in stock, they’ve been reshipping it to us as needed,” said Debbie West at America’s Country Store in Wood’s Cross.
She said they started running out of supplies in January and are just trying to keep up. “We brought in what we usually bring in to handle a normal Utah winter, or a light Utah winter and we just didn’t bring in enough anticipating a very snowy winter. So we didn’t bring in enough and our suppliers weren’t prepared either,” said West.
Britton said shovels are flying off shelves more than he has seen before. “I was looking for a nice wide shovel, and I saw it, at the hardware store. And when I went back all sold out. So, I had to buy a littler one.”
And stores still seeing customers looking for shovels, a couple months into the season. “You don’t see them coming this late, but this year, everything is kind of a surprise. Everything is a little bit new to us,” said West.
We also visited a Tractor Supply store that wouldn’t speak to us on camera, but said they have been out of stock on shovels for weeks now.
