The recent Canadian Home Products Trade Association (CHPTA) meetings included two inductions into the Canadian Hardware and Housewares Industry Hall of Fame.

You can view a two-minute highlight reel of the induction ceremony here.  Honoured were Bill Morrison; veteran executive of Ace Canada, TruServ Canada, and the Hudson’s Bay Co.; and Michael McLarney, founder of Hardlines.

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TIMBER MART has promoted its national hardware procurement manager, Shawn Ettinger, to the role of senior national procurement manager. In this position, he will be responsible for all of the group’s hardlines buying programs and vendor relationships, including with Canadian hardlines buying group Spancan. Accordingly, he will also be appointed to Spancan’s board of directors.

Ettinger, who has over 30 years of experience in hardlines procurement, joined TIMBER MART in 2019. He will continue to be based out of TIMBER MART’s office in Vaughan, Ont., reporting to VP of procurement Randy Martin.

Influencers and media were invited to a breakfast meeting at the Etobicoke IKEA store, in Toronto’s west end, this week. Company representatives, led by IKEA Canada CEO and chief sustainability officer Selwyn Crittendon, presented its annual Summary Report, which promotes the retailer’s values of togetherness, cost consciousness, caring for people, and leading by example.

Canada’s declining interest rates have sparked a renovation boom. According to a CIBC poll, 49 percent of Canadians are planning, executing, or have recently completed home improvements. The average expected renovation will cost $19,000, up from $10,000 in 2019. More than half will pay for their renovation using personal savings.

The top three renovations undertaken by homeowners in the past 12 months were small upgrades and renovations at 46 percent, bathroom upgrades or additions at 39 percent, and flooring upgrades at 32 percent.

Sarah McGoldrick

Walmart Luminate, the suite of data analytics tools developed by the retailer’s Walmart Data Ventures division, is arriving in Canada, Retail Insider reports. “Through the customizable analytics tools or access to data feeds, users can take a temperature check of their business and take a deeper look into how customers are shopping their categories and why,” Jaed Khan, VP of Walmart Canada’s data office, told the publication.

Walmart Luminate has already launched in the U.S. and Mexico. The first tool to be rolled out in Canada is Shopper Behaviour, which “enables merchants and suppliers to better understand how shoppers interact with brands and categories,” according to Khan.

Throwback Thursday is a regular weekly feature in which we dip into the archives of the Hardlines Weekly Report.

Ten years ago (on Nov. 24, 2014) we reported that Slegg Lumber, which had ten stores serving Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, had officially resigned from TIMBER MART (then known as TIM-BR MART). The switch took effect on Jan. 1, 2015. The reason for the change was that Slegg was in the process of being acquired by WSB Titan, a privately-owned gypsum dealer. Less than four years later, in 2018, WSB Titan itself would be purchased from Canadian hands by Gypsum Management & Supply Inc. of Tucker, Georgia, for US$627 million.

The Cape Breton community of Port Hawkesbury, N.S., is getting a Home Hardware Building Centre, SaltWire reports. The MacDonald family, dealer-owners of HHBC locations in Port Hood and Whycocomagh, is opening a third next spring. Port Hawkesbury has been without a Home Hardware since the closure of a previous store in 2014.

“Our parents Pauline and J.R. started the North End Home Hardware [in Port Hood] 45 years ago,” co-owner Melanie MacDonald told SaltWire. “Fourteen years ago, we took on Whycocomagh. Our parents, and Daniel and I and our sister Kelly are all involved—it truly is a family business.”

Sarah McGoldrick

Alimentation Couche-Tard continues to seek to acquire 7-Eleven parent Seven & i holdings. “We will be persistent and continue our friendly approach to creating what we see as the most compelling outcome for all shareholders, employees and key constituencies of both companies,” CEO Alex Miller told analysts on a conference call yesterday. The family of Seven & i founder Masatoshi Ito has tabled a non-binding management buyout proposal as an alternative to Couche-Tard’s bid.

Bruce Holman, who retired as Castle Building Centres Group’s business development director in 2022 after nearly two decades with the company, died of cancer last weekend. He is survived by his mother Joy, his wife Corrinne, his former wife Dianne, and six children and stepchildren. Plans for a celebration of his life have not yet been finalized.