Manufacturer and Distributor
As the store did business, it often found it difficult to find suppliers of certain items as manufacturers quit making the obsolete technology or went out of business. This forced Lehman's to look other places to develop new suppliers or become their own supplier.
In the case of cast iron wood-burning parlor stoves, the Amish only accept the product in black, so Lehman's arranges special manufacturer runs, typically buying a three-year supply at a time.
Lehman's also deals in replacement parts for many of their products, tracking them down from individual manufacturers, or at times reverse engineering them. When there is a lack of manufacturers for needed parts, they often obtain the casting parts and hire out the work, or do the manufacturing themselves, frequently without regard to profit.
Read more about this topic: Lehman's Hardware