Blizzard turns to bliss for some companies, snowpiles for others

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Snowblower sales and repair businesses are reaping a blizzard bonanza while retailers and locally headquartered companies regroup from lost productivity.

Chicagoans are scooping up heavy-duty snow throwers after they found themselves buried in the city’s third-biggest snowfall, one local retailer said.

“People are asking for larger [snowblowers] like the two-stage snow throwers that have an auger that breaks the snow and a fan that blows the snow. We also sell snowblowers with paddles that scoop and blow the snow with one motion,” said Peter Liakouras, sales supervisor at Russo Power Equipment in Schiller Park.

“If a city truck or a salt truck comes by, people who have cleared the snow find it back on their property,” he said. “It’s extremely hard to clear with a shovel.”

Online sales of snowblowers took off, too, with Russo and Sears’ Craftsman equipment benefitting from people who want a quick delivery, spokesmen for the companies said.

Elston Ace Hardware of Hyde Park, which stayed open Wednesday, saw healthy sales of shovels, flashlights, batteries and other weather-related equipment, a spokeswoman said.

The Holiday Inn-Mart Plaza enlisted some of its managers to clean rooms when the blizzard kept co-workers at home, and the hotel counted 500 more rooms booked than anticipated on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“The restaurant and the bar were packed,” a 75 percent increase in business when guests stayed put, said France Langan, director of sales and marketing.

Many of the Holiday Inn sleepovers were law-firm assistants and train engineers and switch operators, Langan said.

The InterContinental on Michigan Avenue wasn’t as lucky, with 150 extra room reservations overshadowed by a greater number of cancellations, hotel general manager Ed Andrews said.

Shopping malls and the corporate offices of Abbott Laboratories, Kraft Foods, McDonald’s Corp., Motorola Solutions, Motorola Mobility, Jewel-Osco, and other companies reopened Thursday.

The Internet left corporate workers with no excuse to skip work, however, and many stayed in touch remotely.

Motorola Solutions, the walkie-talkie and bar-code-reader spinoff of the old Motorola, reported that nearly all of its 6,300 Chicago-area employees used remote connections to get work done on Wednesday.

Retailers hope Valentine’s Day deals entice shoppers and make up for their lost sales. Online sales typically jump during bad weather.