(<< Continued from Previous Page) This store would be a refuge for people who purchased stuff from Home Depot, tried it out, realized it wasn’t the right thing, and then discovered it couldn’t be returned because it had been opened. Rather than going to pieces in frustration, they’d be able to bring their stuff to Half-Used Hardware instead. In exchange for the wrong thing, they’d be able to get a half-used container of the right thing. Of course, you could also buy things from Half-Used Hardware, but none of the things offered there would have come to the store through the usual methods. Half-Used Hardware would have a clever staff that would be sent out on garage-cleaning missions, to sort out and organize the garages of people who are too busy to do it themselves. They would do an inventory of the client’s garage, and then anything the client wasn’t going to use would be taken to Half-Used Hardware as part of the client’s payment. The rest would be well-organized so that the client could find what they were looking for, and wouldn’t have to go out and buy stuff new every time they needed to do a project.

Amongst the staff of Half-Used-Hardware there would also be skilled repairmen, who would know how to repair things (DVD players, cell phone LCD screens, refrigerators) that most commercial enterprises claim are “irreparable” and would be “better off replaced.” The store would thereby develop a certain cache amongst people who are frustrated by the way our culture “replaces” rather than “repairs.” This Nouveau-Repair Movement would create a growing market for repairable products. Product design would once again focus on product longevity, rather than product cheapness. There would be classes offered at Half-Used-Hardware franchises on how to repair your own goods, and how to buy things that are repairable. And there would be an in-house Half-Used-Hardware workshop, where you could repair things using Half-Used’s tools. (It would only cost a small fee, and that way you wouldn’t have to buy tools for yourself only to have to sell them again later.)

What would make Half-Used so appealing, though, would be the fact that its focus would be on helping you figure out how to do the job correctly, rather than having to do it and re-do it with the wrong tools and materials time and again. This would be the underpinning of the Half-Used-Hardware brand of success.

What pie-in-the-sky gifts are on your wish list this year?
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