One of the Most Special Specialty Retailers We Know

In 2015, Cult received a phone call from the CMO of a retailer wanting to level up their marketing and take their customer and employee experiences to new heights. He requested we share our credentials, and we gladly obliged. Soon, we were formally introduced to the wonderful and unique world of Princess Auto.

In preparation for our initial meeting, some of our staff secret-shopped a local Princess Auto store. Upon entry, a Princess Auto Associate (whom they call Team Members) asked how he could help. Our Head Strategist said they were looking for “barbeque stuff”. The Team Member showed him various products which would allow him to build his own rotisserie grill. Our staff became so enthralled they bought everything that was recommended and more. Later that afternoon they returned to the office with several bags, including the largest wrench we’ve ever seen, an ammo box, a bone saw, and some heavy-duty work clothes. As we gathered around the table, staring at the sundry merchandise, we questioned aloud, “What the hell is this store?!”

Princess Auto is a Canadian-owned retailer founded in 1933. Today they operate over fifty stores, a robust e-commerce site, and employ over 3,200 Team Members. It’s a privately held, family-run enterprise proudly based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. They don’t disclose their revenues, but ZoomInfo projects they did over $600MM in 2021, and their CEO has publicly stated they’ve enjoyed more growth in the past two years than the previous five.

As we’ve gotten to know this business, this brand, and its people, we’ve been so impressed with everything we’ve seen and experienced. They are growing for numerous reasons, but the following five things stand out as enviable attributes other businesses should seek to emulate:

1. Princess Auto consistently delivers its ‘remarkability’. Remarkability doesn’t refer to exceptionalness as much as it does notableness or buzz worthiness. All great brands should create a singular thing their fans disproportionately remark about to others. Princess Auto does many things well, but they consciously chose one thing to become famous for, which they call Royal Service. 

Every Team Member is indoctrinated on what Royal Service is and how it manifests in day-to-day activities. To laymen, it means Princess Auto provides unrivaled customer service, backed by a promise that no sale is final until the customer is satisfied. The company gladly repairs, replaces, or refunds any product, at any time, for any reason.

Royal Service is much more than a favorable return policy; it's an overt commitment that customers will be happy with their purchase, or Princess Auto will find a way to make them happy. There is no fine print, no exceptions, no B.S. It’s an ‘our word is our bond’ kind of handshake that used to mean something in foregone times, and Princess Auto has stood by that commitment for decades. Doing so removes any doubts about anything anyone chooses to buy from their store.

Does your business have a remarkable? Or, does it dabble in multiple areas trying to be slightly above average? What if you chose to dominate in one thing, and deliver it in such a consistent and compelling way that people spontaneously told others about it?

2. Princess Auto has clarity about their customer. This retailer exists to serve the tradespeople, farmers, and industrial workers that keep Canada running. The brand elevates the importance of men and women who are all too often treated less than by others. But, by embracing the people who have grease on their clothes or dirt under their fingernails, Princess Auto has become a haven where blue-collar workers feel welcome. They can easily park their oversized trucks in the parking lot, can track mud in from their shoes, and enjoy a hot cup of coffee as they take a break from their labors to wander the store and check out gadgets and gizmos that figure-it-outers love to tinker with. 

Princess Auto’s leadership consistently conducts formal research into their audience’s practical preferences and emotional need state. Everything Princess Auto says, the places they communicate, and the way they behave, convey empathy for their customer. Princess Auto wants its shoppers to feel like its brand isn’t just enabling them, but also rooting for their success.

Does your business have an intimate understanding of what your customers expect from you? Do you understand how emotionally engaged your best customers are? Do you know what else they want from you in order to give you a greater share of wallet, or become more committed brand advocates?

3. Princess Auto is unapologetically unique. For years, Princess Auto’s tagline was, “A unique world of equipment, tools, and more”. Their uniqueness is foundational to their customer experience and is most noticeable in their assortment.

Princess Auto’s product mix is unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere. Its merchants scour the world for products uncommonly found at traditional hardware or auto parts stores. For example, a recent advertisement featured a heavy-duty floor jack, an 8ft tall exercise tower, a bundle of ratchet tie-down straps, a wood-burning camping stove, and healthier skin foot cream! The cherry on top of this unusual product diversity is an entire store section called Surplus which contains racks of miscellaneous goods such as board games, office supplies, materials to build go-carts, and bath and body items. The concept of Surplus dates back to the business’ origin when Harvey Tallman collected random war surplus items and resold them from the back of his pickup truck.

There is a method behind the madness of its merchandise strategy because its customers have come to rely on Princess Auto to provide hard-to-find items other retailers don’t stock. Also, over 80% of what Princess Auto sells is private label. They have two popular house brands - ProPoint and PowerFist- that can only be found at their stores and website. These brands afford Princess Auto the luxury of controlling price points and margins and put them in the driver’s seat regarding supply chain issues.

Princess Auto’s eclectic assortment isn’t the only quirky thing about this retailer. They use playful language (i.e., calling sale promotions “Price Wreckers”), they sponsor Curling instead of hockey or other mainstream sports, and their locations are on the outskirts of towns rather than in highly trafficked shopping centers. They’ve proven they can succeed because of their uniqueness, not in spite of it.

Does your business have something truly differentiated that makes it stand out from a sea of sameness? Are you trying to combat parity and commoditization with clever communication strategies, or are you creating substantive value propositions that actually matter?

4. Princess Auto caters to its Team Members in extraordinary ways. This company hires two full-time Team Members in-store for every part-time Team Member (the opposite of most retailers). Their store closes on busy holidays so their people can stay home with their families, and their CEO sends daily shout-outs to individual team members on social media to thank them for their dedicated service.

Princess Auto is a category leader in terms of wages and benefits, expends considerable effort to empower store managers, and prefers to promote from within. For example, Ken Larson, their CEO, is a 20-year veteran of the company who started as a cashier. He’s made human resources and talent management a core focus of his leadership team and encourages his marketing team to provide funding and support for HR recruiting and training materials.

Ken worked overtime throughout the pandemic - winning over the hearts of all 3,200 staff - by providing a variety of surprises and delights, like mailing 6-packs of beer to employees’ homes and hosting virtual concerts and talent shows. His latest endeavor is coordinating an excursion where Team Members take turns driving a Princess Auto-funded RV from city to city, coast to coast, across Canada.

Ken, says, “We always try to do the right thing and provide Royal Service to our Team Members, the same way we do with our customers. We do this because there is nothing more special than the people that put their heart and soul into their work. It was in our efforts to create a great place to work that we figured out how to make a great place for our customers to shop.”

Does your business understand the correlation between internal and external engagement? Are your best resources being deployed to foster an enviable culture, and are you actively working to increase buy-in amongst your staff?

5. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the thing we really appreciate is its Ownership Group. Princess Auto is owned by an altruistic founding family with sincere desires to build a great company more than a big company. We’ve all seen how going public often ruins businesses because the focus shifts from customers to shareholders, so the founders have kept the company private and utilize it to enable their genuineness and generosity. They know they aren’t perfect, but they do sincerely care about the people they hire, the customers they serve, and the communities they operate in. They champion tradespeople and farmers by finding ways to support charities, programs, associations, and scholarships that encourage more people to work with their hands and figure things out for themselves. They have displayed tremendous patience, wisdom, and restraint to ensure they are building an enterprise that provides vital employment, goods, services, and sustainable impact for generations to come.

We’ve seen firsthand how Princess Auto did the right thing even when it wasn’t the easy thing. This company knows who it is, why it is, and what it is.

Is your leadership committed to a brand purpose or business objective beyond just maximizing profits? Are your team members inspired by their leaders because of their vision, and their ethics, and their ethos?

Cult Collective has had the privilege of working with Princess Auto for many years. This business was special before we got there and will remain special long after we’re gone. But, we are proud of the contributions we’ve been able to make to help them embrace proven principles that increase brand advocacy and significantly boost internal engagement and customer experience.

Craig Coutts, SVP of Marketing at Princess Auto, said, “We’ve been working with Cult for a long time. They constantly push us to be the best version of ourselves because they see so much potential in our brand. They’re a valued partner to help elevate our thinking and help us enhance our customer and Team Member experiences in ways we can’t do ourselves.”

Cult Collective is a brand strategy firm specializing in customer experiences that result in greater brand advocacy. To learn more about how Cult may be able to help your business, please email Bradley@cultideas.com.