Secrets of My Success: Feinsod True Value Hardware

The Feinsod True Value Hardware store at 43 N. Main St. has been a Port Chester landmark for the last 47 years.

While other hardware stores have come and gone, and the arrival of a big-box hardware store more than a decade ago forever altered the local retail landscape, Feinsod has survived on the strength of its customer service, customer loyalty and enduringly positive word-of-mouth.

The store is locally owned by a Port Chester native, Jay Feinsod. Feinsod and his wife Esta have two sons, Jeffery and David, and one daughter Karen. The family also owns a store in Old Greenwich.

Since he was five years old, the 68-year-old businessman has endured the ups and downs of working in retail. From the pressure of competing with a international corporation, The Home Depot, to the question of who will inherit his business, Jay Feinsod shares how he has handled it all. 

Q. When and how did you get started in your business?

A. We lived upstairs from a store... my father had a store on S. Main St., a ShopRite supermarket, and we lived upstairs, my brother, my father and I, and I have two older sisters that were married and out of the house already. My father had a small store that my mother and father ran on 19 S. Main St.

Q. How old were you when you started working? 

A. Five years old. You know, you live in the store. I remember when my mother used to make lunch in the back of the store. She had a little electric stove and it was in the back among the hardware and the tools and the glass. Glass used to come in big boxes with paper in between each piece of glass and every day she’d take a piece of paper out and use it as a tablecloth. Then we moved to a house and I still worked in the store, after school, Saturdays. 

Q. When did you become the owner?

A. I graduated college in 1964. My father was selling the store and I had a few job offers and I said, “Well I could always buy it and sell it.” So I bought it from him and [my parents] instantly moved to Florida and there was a man working with us. His name was Rocky Ciccone, and he and I ran the store and we just grew the store. We were younger and energetic and we did it. 

Q. What was your toughest challenge to overcome when you were first getting started?

A. Rocky Ciccone. I was 25 years old and he was in his 60s already and it was difficult for me, being the owner. My father stepped away. He always said, “A new broom’s going to sweep clean and goodbye”. They moved and I had a lot of trouble working with Rocky as an employer and an employee but we got through it.

Q. What is the secret to your success? Why have you been around for so long?

A. Customer care and you know, it’s an old saying but you’re here. And I do care. I bend over backwards for everybody, no matter how big or how small. I worked with a woman this morning- three screws. And its 18 cents a screw. It took me 20 minutes to get it right. I had to get it in and make it fit. She had a sun dial and she lost the screws so... ‘till we got it right, but we did.

Q. What suggestions would you have for someone who wants to go into retail?

A. Today? It’s rough out there, especially with the economy the way it is. People don’t want to spend money. They’re afraid of what’s going on in the world, in the United States...  It’s no secret. You have to like retail. You have to like people. If you don’t do that, you don’t belong here. When we’ve hired people in the past years, I hire for attitude and then I train them. If I can find a hardware person or paint person with lots of experience... but the attitude has to be right. You’ve got to be a people person. 

Q. What do you enjoy the most about your job?

A. Waiting on customers, solving problems, making them satisfied so they can go home and say, “Hey! What a great experience! This guy spent so much time with me. It’s wonderful, the people are nice”... one talks to the other. That’s why we’ve bee here for all these years. 

Q. Who is your competition? 

A. I started here in 1964. There were seven hardware stores. Now there’s one. Me. Actually, there’s another up in Rye Ridge, but there were seven stores in this town and they’re all gone. The competition today is Home Depot. It’s 11 years they’ve been there. I could do without them. They definitely have made an impact on the way we do business, what we sell, what we don’t sell, but they’re there. They have their customers. We share some of their customers. 

Q. Why do you think the other hardware stores went out of business?

A. Well, maybe there was just no succession plan, no family. Maybe they just didn’t have the desire and the drive to keep it going. I got married and Esta and I had three children... and camp and college...[the kids] are all successful in their own world. They all worked here but nobody came into the business. We expanded... at one time we had five stores and employed over 100 people. 

Q. Where were your other stores?

A. I had a store in Rye and we were also in the rental business. We had two rental [stores] up on N. Main St. in Port Chester and we had a store called Grand Rental Station, party rentals in Greenwich, about 15 years ago. 

Q. What makes you different from your competition? 

A. You know, my employees, they’re a mature group. I hope everything that I do and my energy and fervor about the store drips onto everybody else... At our store in Old Greenwich, we had a gal that had been there for a long time... She said, “I worked here in Greenwich High School and that was one of the best educations I ever had was working here. I am now a Columbia graduate"... My daughter’s the same way. She was the floor repair person at the University of Vermont. She came with a toolbox. Aside from the hardware education, it's the people exchange.

Q. What do you think will happen to the business when you retire?

A. That's a good question. What’s the future here? I don't know. I still enjoy getting up and going to work in the morning. I'm healthy enough and as long as I can keep doing that, I'll be here. 

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