While a 50th anniversary is usually associated with gold, Shop Supply Service in Findlay, OH, celebrated their 50th year in business with a Diamond NetPlus Perks status. With 20 years of NetPlus membership under their belts, this family-run operation made a concerted effort to grow in 2024 and is now experiencing the benefits.
When you’re running a local business, it can be challenging to commit the time and effort of your employees to anything outside of the day-to-day necessities. But our members have proven that the long-term benefits of staying engaged with the NetPlus community are worth the dedication and strategic planning.
BUILDING A FAMILY LEGACY
Shop Supply Service serves their community with everything from fasteners to janitorial supplies to power transmission components. But it didn’t start out that way.
“My father started the business back in 1974 out of his garage,” said Shop Supply Service Partner Jared Hohman. Over the years, his dad, Merle, built the business up, moved out of the garage, and passed it down to his three sons, Derek, Nathan, and Jared. Jared and Derek still run the business today after resiliently facing challenges like flooding in their area in 2007, the COVID-19 pandemic which claimed many businesses, and the passing of their beloved brother Nathan in a 2023 accident. Their commitment to family and excellent service keep them moving forward.
The Shop Supply Service team consists of 12 employees, the vast majority being family members. In 2017, they made a critical decision keep their business competitive.
“We purchased another company here in Findlay, OH, that was in business for 75 years,” Hohman explained. The other business had been struggling despite their own long legacy, and the Shop Supply Service team didn’t want a much bigger competitor swooping in. They brought their former neighbor’s business in-house, taking on new product lines like bearings, sprockets, belts, and more.
COMMITTING TO ENGAGEMENT
Being a NetPlus member has brought a host of benefits for this family team from competitive buying power to valuable networking opportunities to earned rebates that make room for business improvements.
“We’ve been able to buy firsthand from a lot of suppliers that in the past we’ve had to source secondarily, which obviously
increases our margins and allows us for a wider product offering,” Hohman said.
Their NetPlus rebates go right back into the business, Hohman went on. Those funds often supporting their fleet of delivery vehicles, empowering them to continually offer their customers better, faster, more reliable service. This team is putting in the work to stay at the top of their game.
“We worked really hard this year on getting up to that Diamond level,” he said, backed by a long list of proof. Shop Supply Service launched into Growth Plus plans in 2024, setting strategic goals with five NetPlus suppliers to boost their growth efforts.
They also committed to showing up last year. They attended the Annual Meeting, as they’re known to do, and made the most of their appointment times and networking opportunities. It’s not typical, Hohman explained, to be able to speak openly with other distributors as many in their own community would be direct competitors. But with NetPlus, members from around the country can learn from one another and talk through common challenges to find solutions.
In 2024, they also dove into educational opportunities through NetPlus Academy. “Training seminars have been really helpful for my sales staff,” Hohman said. Shop Supply Service dedicated time to three Virtual Hands-On Training opportunities to support the expansion of their sales staff’s product mastery.
The next 50 years will undeniably lead to even further growth. Their focuses will include continued service enhancements, an improved and expanded web presence, and strategic navigation of bigger, local competition. With NetPlus, Shop Supply Service is well positioned and uniquely supported in their aims.
