Long-Time Franchisees Terry and Sandy Gerhart Transform Their Wild Birds Unlimited Store to Meet Changing Consumer Needs

About 30 years ago, Terry and Sandy Gerhart stopped by a Humane Society in a nearby community in hopes of adopting a cat. When they arrived, the Humane Society was closed, but something else caught their attention: a Wild Birds Unlimited store. That serendipitous visit ultimately changed the Gerharts' lives in an unexpected and exciting way.

From the moment they stepped inside the Wild Birds Unlimited store, Terry and Sandy were amazed. “At the time, what a cardinal looked like was the only thing we knew about birds,” Sandy said. “The Wild Birds Unlimited **store we stumbled upon was beautiful, and I think we ended up buying almost $200 worth of supplies.”

While shopping, Terry had noticed signage and handouts placed throughout the store that mentioned franchising with the brand. According to Terry, this prompted him to speak to the store owner to find out more information regarding franchising with Wild Birds Unlimited.

Low and behold, in May 1993, Terry and Sandy opened their very own Wild Birds Unlimited store in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania.

As Wild Bird Unlimited franchisees for almost 30 years now, Terry and Sandy have established best practices that work for their business over the years. However, as the Wild Birds Unlimited system has adapted to changing consumer preferences toward technology, Terry and Sandy quickly realized they, too, would have to adapt to changing consumer preferences in order to successfully run their business.

Terry and Sandy have recently implemented the Wild Birds Unlimited system’s latest initiatives, dubbed Transformation 2.0, to leverage the brand’s omni-channel resources and bring their business to the future through new digital sales initiatives. As part of these new initiatives, the products at Terry and Sandy’s store are now featured on a comprehensive and user-friendly online shopping site called MyWBU. The MYWBU store is an extension of local stores and orders are fulfilled by the same local staff customers already know and trust.

Implementing the MYWBU Store enabled Terry and Sandy to digitize their inventory, which Sandy noted has helped them immensely. “Everything gets done faster; we are able to quickly find the items in the store that our customers ordered and have them ready for pick-up in approximately 20 to 30 minutes,” she said.

Another component of the Transformation 2.0 Terry and Sandy really love is the daily savings club**. For an annual fee of $25, members of the daily savings club get 15% off the regular price of all Wild Birds Unlimited exclusive, as well as other perks including fresh and high-quality bird food.

“Before implementing the daily savings club, we were old-school,” Terry said. “We were doing the ‘seed storage’ program where people would buy bird seed in bulk and I had to predict what the price of seed was going to be—it wasn’t working too well. Now with the daily savings club, our sales have really increased.

Customers are purchasing more birdseed, trying different kinds of seeds and showing interest in new products.”

“When I called Paul Pickett [chief development officer at Wild Birds Unlimited] to tell him I wanted to do the daily savings club, he responded, ‘Wow! I thought you would never go for it.’ But we love it.”

Sandy added: “We held off doing the program for years because we didn’t think our customers would like it. We thought they would prefer the old way, as a lot of people don’t like change—and we can attest to that—but it’s a lot simpler, and people are saving money every day. Honestly, our customers love it just as much as we do!”

In addition to the online store and the daily savings club, Terry and Sandy have started to utilize Wild Birds Unlimited’s email blasts to enhance their sales. According to Terry, through their email database, he is able to email thousands of customers at once, even allowing him to split them up into different categories. “I can email just the ‘daily savings club’ members or whatever group, with one email,” he said. “I couldn’t do that before, I had to manually enter in each customer’s individual email.”

And finally, to complete their store’s transformation, Terry and Sandy are officially moving their Wild Birds Unlimited store to another location in Sinking Springs. The husband-and-wife pair are changing locations because, according to Terry, their old store just feels outdated and out of the way. The new location will feature an earth-tone color pattern, which better fits the Wild Birds Unlimited look. Additionally, the new location will be a lot smaller, so Terry and Sandy can really focus on showcasing the most popular items.

What’s more, the move provides Terry and Sandy with an opportunity to significantly expand their customer base. The new store puts them closer to a major highway in a strip mall with several other stores and an estimated 30,000 cars parked in the lot each day, Terry noted. “This really increases our chances of foot traffic and obtaining new customers,” Sandy said.

Through these new initiatives and a brand new store location, Terry and Sandy Gerhart are certainly ready to bring their Wild Birds Unlimited store to the next level—and the future.

Wild Birds Unlimited is the original and largest franchise system of backyard bird feeding and nature specialty stores with more than 340 locations throughout the United States and Canada. The investment level to open a Wild Birds Unlimited location is $170,382 to $281,606. To learn about franchising opportunities with Wild Birds Unlimited, please visit www.wbufranchise.com.