Bill Boltz is no stranger to a big-box store. Even before becoming Executive Vice President of Merchandising at Lowe’s, Boltz spent 7 years at his current company’s biggest competitor: The Home Depot (or the Orange Guy, as Boltz cheekily refers to them.) Before his foray into the world of hammers and saws, Boltz also spent an incredible 24 years rising through the ranks of the department store, Sears. 

Yet, despite over 40 years in retail merchandising, Bill Boltz had never actually set out to join the retail industry. Boltz’s career in retail started in 1982 with what was supposed to be a 90-day job putting bicycles together for Sears—just a way to cover tuition, he thought. Instead, he discovered a passion. 

“I enjoyed interacting with consumers, I enjoyed selling,” Boltz remembers. And especially within retail: “There’s a different challenge that gets thrown at you every day and that’s the exciting part. It’s never the same.”

Designing for DIYers

With a career so deeply rooted in merchandising and operations, it’s easy to write Bill Boltz off as a behind-the-scenes technical expert. Yet, Boltz proves time and time again that nobody understands the consumer better than he does. 

When Boltz highlights the influence the female shopper has on the assortments and sets inside the Lowe’s store, the audience looks around in confusion. After all, a lot of people come in with the assumption that most of the consumers at a hardware store are male—perhaps builders or contractors. Boltz proves us all wrong. 

“Think about it for a minute, in a family typically she’s making the decisions, and approving the decisions. She’s going to be the one [picking] the colors… and she’s becoming more confident to take that project on herself.”

Many of Lowe’s customers, he says, are in fact women. Not only that, 70% of Lowe’s customers are DIYers. 

Boltz is especially passionate about reaching the customer where they are, which is increasingly social media: “We’re trying to reach her in the way she wants to be reached. Youtube and Tiktok are [places that she’s going for information] in addition to being able to talk to someone in the store who can help her pick out products.”

Looking to the Future

Since Boltz stepped into his role as EVP of Merchandising seven years ago, Lowe’s has been undergoing transformation after transformation in an effort to stay relevant and productive.  “When you’re operating 1,750 brick locations, you don’t want those to become irrelevant,” Boltz says. A key part of maintaining that relevance, he emphasizes, is having quality associates. “They want to be there, they’re excited, they are passionate about selling stuff, they aren’t afraid to engage the customer,” he explains. “They can say hello to them and ask them what they’re working on, help make suggestions and do all those things.” 

“This is really important because most folks aren’t wandering in the store to just wander around,” he continues. “There’s something that happened in their life so [associates] want to make sure that [they] can figure out what [they] can do to take care of the problem.”

He then dives into the online experience and how that is used to direct customers into physical locations. Many shoppers conduct research online prior to stepping into a store and Lowe’s has adapted to meet that behavior. “The inventory level is available [online, and] the location of where it’s at in the store so it’s a good navigation tool.” Boltz again emphasizes the importance of meeting the customer where they are. 

Impending international tariffs have many retailers spooked, but Boltz appears calm when asked about the future of merchandising at Lowe’s. 

“We have a saying at Lowe’s: ‘bJust because you can doesn’t mean you should.’ We could move production to another country, but if there isn’t a freight line set up to move to another country, it may not make sense to move it. For each situation, we’re going to evaluate it and understand what the level of impact is.” 

Leading With Your Ears

As the session comes to an end, everyone has one question still on their minds: after almost 40 years as an industry leader, what advice does Bill Boltz have for people at the very beginning of their journey? Boltz’s answer is simple: 

“My mother always said, “You were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. Spend more time listening than speaking.”

For Boltz, this means putting aside his own ideas and choosing to listen to the people around him: suppliers, associates, customers, and “the folks that are doing the work.”

 

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