Take heart, folks who miss the old Building 19 stores: Discount retailer Ollie’s has entered New Hampshire, opening this week in the former Big Lots location in Belmont.
The Pennsylvania firm is in many ways a variant of the Massachusetts reseller, which went out of business in 2013. Ollie’s operates on the same business model, buying surplus or closeout goods from other retailers and reselling them, uses the same sort of cartoonish ads joking about its owner, uses the same “good stuff cheap” slogan, and shuns online retail because that can’t duplicate what it calls the “treasure hunt” aspect of visiting a store with a constantly changing set of items on sale.
This isn’t a coincidence. Although the two companies were completely separate — Ollie’s was founded in 1982, two decades after Building 19 began, and largely avoided New England until recently — Ollie’s did buy out Building 19 stock as well as its brand and slogans; it even opened a store in Worcester, Mass., in a former Building 19 store that it branded as Ollie’s Bargain Outlet @ Building #19. According to news reports, the two company’s founders were friends and Building 19 helped Ollie’s with some of its early advertising.
Ollie’s is on something of a roll lately. It has doubled its national store count since 2018, partly because it bought 60 Big Lot locations — including those in Belmont and Nashua — after that retailer declared bankruptcy. The Belmont store is its 600th. Its stated goal is to have 1,050 stores.
The company has flourished in part due to a very successful loyalty program. Media reports say that 80% of sales were to the 14.2 million members of its “Ollie’s Army” program, which offers varying levels of rewards for buying lots of stuff. It has also benefited from bankruptcies of major retailers due to COVID and online buying, which increases its available stock.
Ollie’s says the Belmont store will employ 50 to 60 people, including part-time positions. Ollie’s says it employs over 13,000 people around the country.
Building 19 was a Massachusetts-based retailer that had 13 stores throughout New England, including several in New Hampshire. It went bankrupt in 2013 after 50 years; the owners attributed its decline partly to better fire protection in warehouses since a portion of the goods it sold were salvage items obtained after building fires.
