May, 2009

Web Exclusive:

Powers Do it Best Webcam Voted Top 10 Worldwide

By Story Courtesy of Do it Best Corp.

There are some stories which capture readers’ attention, and often times it is the ones you don’t expect. That was the case when the folks at Do it Best Corp. ran a story in Profit Lines, the members-only newsletter, back in July 2007 on the webcam at Powers Do it Best® Hardware & Lumber in Beaver Island, Mich. The camera is mounted on top of the store, streaming live photos with a gorgeous view of the island’s harbor. Click here to see the Powers Do it Best webcam. http://www.powershardware.com/beaverislandwebcam/

Members logged on to mydoitbest.com and checked out the webcam. And they kept coming back, month after month. A year and a half later, it is still one of the most consistently viewed stories on the co-op’s web site. 

Now Do it Best members aren’t the only ones to notice the great views of Beaver Island. Powers’ webcam was picked by the producers of EarthCam.com as one of the top 10 webcams in the world for November 2008. The site delivers the most comprehensive network of live webcams from around the globe. Powers made the top 10 competing against locations like Paris, Moscow, and Aruba.

“The webcam brings a lot of good PR to our site,” said Jeff Powers, owner. “We’re getting more than 400 hits per day. We get e-mails from all over the United States as well as around the world. We recently received one from someone in The Netherlands thanking us for the webcam. Some people from Ohio and Texas called us last summer to ask if we’d move the webcam so they could watch the fireworks over the harbor on July 4th. People definitely find it a very interesting site.”

While there are some hunters, snowmobilers, and cross country skiers that come to Beaver Island in the winter, the island is primarily a warm weather tourist destination. As a result, the store’s winter business slows compared to their summer volume. So it may surprise you that the store has quite a different stocking strategy than just about anybody else. They actually stock up on items for the winter. Why?

"The ferry stops running because the harbor freezes up,” Jeff said. “There’s really no chance of getting the ferry boat in here without an ice breaker, so we try to order all our heavy items for the winter and get them in here by mid December.” While shipping is somewhat of a problem during the winter, the lower sales volume makes it easier to manage. “But there’s always something that you end up needing that you didn’t plan on, so we try to do the best we can.”

The ferry stops running around late December. The island goes without ferry service for almost three and a half months from the end of December until the first of April. The island isn’t without transportation, however. There are two air services that still fly everyday (weather permitting), but the freight charge on the airplanes is a lot more than the freight charge on the ferry. So the store stocks up on lumber, drywall, compounds, paint, nails, and other items that are heavy or not able to be shipped via UPS.

However, an emergency ferry run does happen sometimes. “Last winter we had a situation where they were running out of fuel here on the island,” said Jeff. “Gasoline was getting low, so they had to make a special run of the ferry boat. The Coast Guard came in with ice breaker boats to open up the harbor so the ferry could get in and out."