“Sorry, one of my merchants needs me,” he says, seating himself at a patio-furniture set. Talk about success will have to wait, though, because right now Butler needs to take a call about flooring. “A lot of the incoming calls this year have been, ‘How did I miss Ollie’s?’ ” says Judah Frommer, an analyst at Credit Suisse. No one has benefited more from the run-up in Ollie’s stock than Butler himself, who has an estimated $1 billion fortune, nearly all from his approximate 15% stake in the company. Ollie’s shares now trade at 34 times earnings. This handily beats the performance from the rest of retail (the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has actually lost 12%), the broader stock market (the S&P 500 has gained 34%) and even high-flying Amazon (up nearly 290%). Even after a recent sell-off, shares in Ollie’s have quintupled since its IPO in 2015. Not only is it opening new locations, its stock is on a tear.
Shoppers peruse the book section at Ollie's in Rock Hill, South Carolina. They should be in later that week, he’s told.
The store should, however, have a full supply of Mangano-branded clothing hangers. No, the QVC queen (and titular entrepreneur of the 2015 film Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence) is not supposed to be at Ollie’s.
The display of Hatchimals- Furby-like creatures in an egg, the hit toy of Christmas 2016-earns similar praise: “Hot.” And he is pleased with the weighted blankets (a super-heavy comforter meant to keep sleepers from rolling around) near the front door. “This is hot,” he says, examining a dwindling supply of Chefman air fryers. Moving through the store, Butler notes what’s selling. (“Something like the radio bothers the daylights out of me,” he admits.) “What station do we have on?” Soon the tunes get softer and more modern. “Turn the music down a bit.” The Kinks can be heard, clearly, through the store’s public-address system. “Parking lot is very, very full.” Something is off, though. “Looks good,” he says, a group of lieutenants gathering around him. Butler, 60, has attended every one of Ollie’s first 104 openings, but it’s harder to get to them these days with Ollie’s rolling out almost 40 a year. When he walks in around 10, he is almost indistinguishable from his customers.
The CEO, chairman, president and cofounder of Ollie’s is Mark Butler, a slightly built man with a big mustache and graying hair silvering over to white. Butler inside his office in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.