HANNAFORD REBUILDING HOMERUNS OPERATIONS

LINDA PURPURA

SCARBOROUGH, Maine -- Hannaford Bros. here has resumed taking orders for its HomeRuns home shopping program. A building collapse at its Newton, Mass., warehouse in April had forced the retailer to suspend service from April 24 to June 3.

HomeRuns had been handling 2,000 orders per week prior to the temporary shutdown, caused when an adjacent building collapsed and knocked down a wall at its 50,000-square-foot home shopping fulfillment center. The retailer plans to move to a l00,000-square-foot facility in Somerville, Mass., next month.

"If HomeRuns expects to significantly expand its customer base, it needs the additional sized facility," said Charles Crockett, director of investor relations at Hannaford.

HomeRuns also plans to implement new business process systems to enhance operations at the new facility, but Tom Furber, vice president of HomeRuns, declined to provide details.

The HomeRuns service offers home shopping and delivery in the Boston area, one of the nation's most competitive markets for this type of program. HomeRuns used a number of different vehicles to keep in touch with customers during the hiatus, including mailings and phone calls, said Furber.

"This was a major setback," he said. "I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't. But we're committed to what we're doing."

Feedback has ranged from "positive to not so positive," Furber said. "We'll know more as we go. Our expectation is we lost customers. The world doesn't stay still."