Ocean State Job Lot Offers Customers Bargains in New England

Throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and New York, deep-discounter Ocean State Job Lot, OSJL, has proven that Wal-Mart is not the only place where low prices and name brands can be found.

Merchandise sold by this discounter includes seasonal, bed and bath items, hardware, apparel, lawn and garden tools, videos, automotive accessories, older books, older software, stationery items, artist items, health and beauty aids, paper goods and chemicals, greeting cards and party supplies, toys, small appliances, snacks, candy, non-perishable items, luggage, some basic types of furniture, sporting goods, small electronic accessories, and other miscellaneous goods.

According to Marc Perlman, company president, an example of merchandise which could be seen at OSJL is if Revlon changes from a 16-ounce shampoo to a 17-ounce shampoo and wants rid of its 16-ounce stock, OSJL purchases it and sells it at a discount.

Another example, Perlman said, is if the U.S. Naval Academy at West Point, N.Y., had a contract with Sears to provide bedding and the contract fell through, OSJL might buy up the stranded product.

Sometimes a manufacturer wants to get rid of last year's clothes or has a batch of "irregular" clothes they want to sell even if they look and wear the same.

These clothes might have the labels, such as Levi's, ripped off but they are sold at low prices not found anywhere else.

The problem with the way OSJL acquires merchandise is that a store might have Elmer's Glue for six months but not have any more until another six months.

This lends itself to the company's motto "adventure shopping" since products change so frequently.

The company focuses on buying as many name-brand products as possible unlike other close-out chains which acquire as merchandise as possible whether it is name-brand or not.

OSJL mostly purchases items discounted by a manufacturer and only one percent of its merchandise comes from stores that have had fires or gone out of business.

Examples of the later example include the sale of merchandise coming from a set of Sears stores that were deemed unprofitable by the company and the liquidation of Montgomery Ward Department Stores.

OSJL's eccentric mix of merchandise is clearly evident when you see Perrier next to pig's knuckles.

I would recommend those buying food to check for expiration dates and take the words "buyer beware" to heart.
However, most food sold by OSJL should still taste fresh and have no problems.

OSJL sales have grown to $340 million in 2005 and are expected to top $350 in 2006.

Ocean State Job Lot originates from one store which opened in 1977 in North Kingstown, Rhode Island and now has 81 stores.

The company currently is opening five to six new stores each year.

Stores range from 30,000 to 45,000 square feet, which means many that have taken over discount stores which could have been as large as 100,000 square feet have since been subdivided or have large stock rooms if the former tenant had much less than 100,000 square feet.

There are about 50 employees in each store and the company employs about 3,000 people.

Discount Store News has ranked the chain as the 137th largest discount retailer.

The store has weekly ads seen in newspapers and has started Internet coupon specials on their website and through e-mail.

Many Ocean State Job Lot locations have helped revitalize small shopping centers dependent on an anchor store.

Shopping centers I have visited either have OSJL as the sole anchor or are anchored with a supermarket, large pharmacy store, a wholesale bulk club, or sometimes a department store.

Stores are located in rural and urban areas along with places where income levels are low and places where they are high.

Both types of communities can support the store frequented by customers looking for a good deal.

Each store has somewhat different merchandise and unlike Wal-Mart, I believe merchandise in each store is geared toward the needs of the local market and sometimes is geared toward whatever shipman of merchandise that particular store happens to receive.

While the store does sell towels and rugs, I would caution shoppers to check the quality of these products before they purchase them because they can be thin and made cheaply if they are not name-brand merchandise.

I have purchased very nice pens for only 5 for $1 at OSJL sold in buckets near the checkouts.

While the pens have various company names and addresses on them, the only flaw on many is the spelling on the pen or the location of the engraving on the pen was not centered.

Those looking to purchase older software products should be aware there are no returns once the package is open and that many of these products will not be able to run correctly on newer machines.

For those who have hung on to their computers for the past couple years or more, these programs should run just fine.

Some OSJL locations are better kept than others.

To cut costs, the floors are often not cleaned thoroughly and some shelves may have dust on them.

I have seen successful locations expand into adjoining vacant retail space and several older locations have received renovations including new shelving.

This is what happened to the Ledyard location which originally took the space of a former department store.

While OSJL used to have a small rug shop in an adjoining space, the rug shop closed to make way for an exercise facility and ice cream shop, both owned by the same person, what a combination!

Just recently, OSJL had the opportunity to acquire this space and made it fully integrated with their store widening space between aisles, creating larger food and home departments, and putting up more computer-generated signs on the aisles rather than the hand-written signs.

Ugly gray dump tables were replaced with the same white aisle shelving seen in regular discount stores.

Additional lighting was added in the new section and walls were painted white to brighten up a store which formally had gray walls and gray floor, quite a drab environment except for the immediate front of the store.

These windows look out onto a drab concrete parking lot featuring no landscaping, large gray light poles with worn red numbers designating row numbers, and of course looking onto a Dunkin' Donuts, a chain which seems to have even more locations than McDonald's.

To help shoppers find merchandise, many stores have large signs with red letters where certain key components
can be located.

While shopping carts and small baskets are provided, many of them have the old "Ames" teal logo of the store which used to occupy that space.

Shoppers receive products upon checkout in plastic shopping bags often bear the names of discounters who have closed and some OSJL stores have the register lights and counters with the old Ames "A+" logo.

The recent creation of "Clearance 50 percent off lowest ticketed price" aisles in the front of the store highlighting products which have been in the store for a good amount of time or products the store has a lot of.

I personally have seen those coming out of work dressed in business suits come to the store looking to save some money.

The name Ocean State Job Lot has a story in itself.

"Ocean State" is named after Rhode Island, the company's birth state and "Job Lot" means extra or surplus goods sold cheap in a single "lot".