By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

A pair of Pelham business partners said they will be looking to give shoppers a dose of variety while saving them loads of money at a newly opened discount store near the old Food World building off U.S. 31.

Keith Russell and Danny Lambert recently opened the Home and Hardware Outlet at 3050 Pelham Parkway, and said they have been pleased with the amount of traffic already visiting the store.

Lambert, who worked at the Avondale Mazer Discount Furniture outlet for 30 years and has owned Lake Home Centers in Pell City since 2007, joined Russell, a wholesale business veteran, to open the business during the first week of October.

Through the business, the partners search for wholesales, liquidations and closeouts from across the country and purchase whatever they can find. Russell and Lambert then sell the products at discounted rates directly to consumers at their store.

“This is high-end stuff,” Russell said. “They are name-brand products, and 99 percent of it is brand new.”

Russell said in the past, he made a living purchasing wholesale lots, closeouts and liquidations and then selling the products to retailers. By forming relationships with manufacturers and suppliers, he said the store is able to offer discounted rates compared to other stores.

“It’s the old cliché of cutting out the middle man. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Russell said. “There are a lot of discount stores out there, but they don’t have the high-end products like we do.”

Currently, the store is bringing in thousands of items ranging from toilet paper and household items to lawnmowers and table saws.

“We used the home and hardware name as kind of a catch-all. We have all kinds of products in here,” Russell said.

Lambert said because the store inventory is dependent on the lots he and Russell purchase, the items on the business’s shelves will be constantly changing.

“One thing I have been telling people is that ‘If you see something you like, you better buy it now. It may not be there when you come back.’ We’ve already dealt with that in the week we’ve been open,” Lambert said, noting the store could have anything from DVDs to outdoor furniture on any given day.

“It’s a unique store. If it is of value, and we think we can offer it to the customers, there’s no telling what we may buy.”

Russell said he and Lambert decided to open the business in Pelham because of the area’s demographics and customer traffic.

“We thought Pelham was a great location. We’ve been pleased with the traffic we’ve been getting so far,” Russell said. “Once we start getting the word out, we think we will start drawing from areas all over Birmingham.”