A new business opened up near Antique Marketplace and West End Grill and Bar called Pool House. Pool House is a swimming pool retail store and service company and is one of the many stores that is under the Blue Pond Industries company, joining Absolute Pool Care, Absolute Lawn and Landscape and Wright Landscaping.
On the retail side, the store has pool chemicals that balances and clean your pool, electronic and side pressure pool cleaners, floats and games for the pool. The store also offers free water testing in-store as they have all the different chemicals to address any of those needs. In addition, they have a Polaris service station and can be fixed in-house.
On the service side, the store has over eight pool service technicians and over six weekly service technicians. The services offered range from inserting new equipment such as liners and covers and fixing any issues with the pool. The weekly service technicians can clean your pool and resolve any pool chemical issues. The store also offers new pool builds such as brand new in-ground, liner and gunite pools. General manager Justin Price stated that the store offers renovations as well.
“Say if you want your pool refinished, we can do that. If you want new tiles, we can do that.
We basically are a one-stop shop for anyone’s pool needs. We could do anything and everything that they need,” Price said.
Price comes from both Berlin and Medford and loves the feel of Hammonton, from the culture, people, stores and shops. Everything about Hammonton is near and dear to Price’s heart as he is originally from South Philadelphia and Hammonton reminds Price as “little South Philadelphia” to him. All of that factored into having Pool House’s location in Hammonton.
“Everybody knows everybody, people are close, businesses trying to help each other, customers trying to help businesses. It’s just a great thing and at the end of the day, in all honesty, I’m trying to offer good value for what people are buying,” Price said.
As Price put it, he has seen price gouging due to the rising prices as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the pool industry. Price’s goal is to keep the prices down from the retail end by staying competitive with the big-box retail stores such as Walmart while offering a better product value compared to big-box product values.
Pool House’s staff consists of store manager Joe Watson and is assisted by Tonilyn Peditto. The store’s reopening was on May 1 and while Watson and Peditto run the store, the store’s previous owners, Traci and John Swayne, will be assisting them in the transition.
When starting a business and trying to garner attention for it, Price’s advice is using word of mouth. By offering a good product and positive customer interaction and experience, Price suggests using that verbiage to help attract business. He strives to offer a great experience as he puts himself in the shoes of the customer.
“I like the idea of an old-school hardware store. If I ask ‘do you have this screw?’, they’re going to take me right to it. ‘Oh yeah, I know where that is, here it is, it’s in aisle G…right here, this is exactly where it is.’ That’s what I want to be, that’s what I strive for, that’s how you create repeat customers. That’s how somebody starting a business will grow their business,” Price said.
Pool House is located on 115 12th Street and is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For service inquiries, you can contact the store at (609) 704-5802 and can dial No. 1 for retail store and No. 2 for billing and service.