It seems an unlikely place for a sales business.
Several miles off US 27 in Garrard county along a single lane, dead-end road sits a partially underground building with a sign out front that reads, “933 The place to be. Join us for some fun digging and daily deals, Monica and Bill Stock.”
They own 933 on Thompson Road and live right next door.
Monica is in her late 50s with brightly colored red-looking hair. Bill is 62, sports a ponytail, and still has those wide shoulders and chest from years as a bodybuilder.
Monica and her husband spent years selling at flea markets. Before that, she played the viola for 35 years with the Lexington Philharmonic and Bill worked as an inventory manager at a Lexington plumbing supply company.
Fast forward to 933. It’s just the two of them, and a broker who sells them pallets of stuff.
Bill Stock explains, “It’s liquidated product that the big guys don’t want. Everybody in business needs a down guy. So the big companies, they’ll sell this stuff to a liquidator, the liquidator will sell it to someone like us. We’ll sell it til we’re done with it.”
The Stocks have no idea what’s in the pallets until they unload their trailer and begin unpacking and sorting.
It could be electronics, toys, hardware supplies, furniture, sporting goods or tools. Most of it is new, perhaps a discontinued model or a box mislabeled.
I asked Bill if it ever felt a little bit like Christmas morning or is that overstating it?
“That’s the term we use. Every time, every time. We don’t know what’s in these boxes. Never have a clue. At one point we had in one truck, 1600 pizza stones, well what are you gonna do with that in Garrard County?” said Bill Stock.
They use Facebook to show their customers what is for sale that week and the marked-down price. Monica oversees posting pictures on Facebook and taking phone calls from customers.
“So somebody will see that post and send me a message, and say I want this, here’s my credit card information, and so I’ll run their credit card, and hold it for them until they can get here.” The Stocks don’t ship items, so they must make it worthwhile for a customer to come to 933. Bill says, “We gotta know where we are. And we’re on a dead-end street at the end of nowhere in Garrard Co. So we have to make it worthwhile. They’re not gonna drive here, spend $10 on gas, and not get a bargain.”
They slash prices 50 to 75 percent off retail. “We’ll have products may be worth $100, and the conversation we’ll have is, let’s sell this for $20, because we want to get people out here today.”
The Stocks say their customers are special. “We love our customers. We are so grateful to them. We have people who have been coming here from day one. This is the only business either one of us has been in, where when our customers leave, we get hugs.”
More on 933 can be found on their Facebook page.
