The presence of U.S.-based dealers in the Canadian market continues to grow with the latest acquisition by GMS Inc., the specialty building products distributor based in Tucker, Ga., a part of Atlanta. Through its Canadian business unit, GMS Canada Inc., the company has bought Blair Building Materials, with one location in Maple, Ont., immediately north of Toronto.

“We are excited to have Blair Building Materials join GMS Canada and our group of strong, in-market branded companies,” said Paul Green, President of GMS Canada. The company sees the move as a way for GMS Canada to increase its market density in the Ontario market.

Blair Building Materials was founded in 1950 by Ernest Lieberman, Murray Rich, and Ralph Higel, and the business originally sold sewer pipe and cement. Today, it remains a major supplier to concrete and drain contractors in the residential GTA market. It’s headed by Ernest Lieberman’s son, Martin Lieberman, who is CEO. He will retire following the acquisition. Dante DiGiovanni, president of the Blair team, will continue with the business going forward. It will operate under the Blair brand name but integrate closely with GMS’s Watson brand in Canada.

Founded in 1971, GMS operates a network of about 300 outlets across the U.S. and Canada, selling gypsum, ceilings, steel framing, and related products. It first arrived in Canada in 2018 with the acquisition of WSB Titan, in a deal worth about $800 million.

Titan, headquartered in Vaughan, Ont., just north of Toronto, represents a collective of dealers that serve the residential, commercial, and institutional markets with gypsum, insulation, lumber, roofing, steel framing, and other related building products. Titan consists of Watson Building Supplies in Vaughan, along with Shoemaker in Alberta and Slegg Building Materials on Vancouver Island. The third key Titan partner, Le Groupe Beauchesne in Quebec, was not part of the acquisition in 2018.

“Blair’s team has served the building industry for decades and offers a collection of complementary categories to the Watson Building Supplies offering,” said Green.

Since then GMS has been buying up smaller, typically family-owned, dealers. Through WSB Titan, it bought up D.L. Building Materials, a supplier of wallboard, acoustical ceilings, steel framing, insulation, and related building products serving the eastern Ontario and western Quebec markets in 2021. In 2019 it purchased Rigney Building Supplies in Kingston, Ont. However, the brand Titan is no longer used by the company, and the Canadian operations have been rebranded as GMS Canada.

Canadian Tire is “doubling down” on a number of its competitive strengths, including the sheer range of products it sells. The retailer is leaning into its multi-category assortments for both its national and private brands, “to deliver more paths to value for our customers in 2023,” said Greg Hicks, president and CEO of Canadian Tire Corp. He shared his comments during a call with analysts following the release of the company’s fourth-quarter results earlier this year.

Selling everything from hardware and tools to sporting goods, kitchenwares, and consumables, the retailer is extending its assortments even more by addressing all price points. “We’ve long been known for the breadth of our assortment,” Hicks said, “and by continuing to expand our range of good, better, and best products over the last many years, we are in a better position now than ever.”

Canadian Tire is enhancing its owned-brands portfolio for budget-minded shoppers, as a way “to continue meeting customers’ wants and needs while providing much needed value, if and when they are looking to trade down.”

The retailer has designed entire categories, such as barbecues, kitchen appliances, bicycles, and tents with the good, better, and best product representation. By offering a private brand at each price point, Canadian Tire ensures maximum profit from each quality tier, said Hicks. “For example, within kitchen appliances, we offer Master Chef, which is our good tier product while Vida Paderno is our better and Paderno is our best.”

The Home Depot deliberately had no aisle numbers in its stores for the first 20 years of its existence. So writes Jim Inglis, former executive vice-president of merchandising at the company. In his recent book on home improvement retailing principles, Breakthrough Retailing: How a Bleeding Orange Culture Can Change Everything, Inglis explains why The Home Depot chose to leave its aisles un-numbered.

“Early in our history, we emphasized to our store sales associates that they should never point the customer in a direction; they should always escort the individual to the appropriate counter or introduce them to the person who could provide the assistance they required. Hence, there was simply no need for aisle numbers that could tempt people to underperform by just directing the customer to an aisle.”

This policy was immutable, says Inglis. It wasn’t the easiest solution, he admits, but it was right for Home Depot in the early days. “Every employee was indoctrinated with the understanding that he or she must make eye contact with every customer he or she passed.”

A simple question like, “Can I help you?” was also a no-no. “Rather, we encouraged our associates to ask open-ended questions to start the dialogue, such as, ‘What project are you working on today?’ ”

(You can watch and meet Jim Inglis live at the Hardlines Conference in Whistler, B.C., on Oct. 17 and 18, 2023. He will present an in-depth workshop on retail best practices. For more information and to register, click here now!)

The value of bricks-and-mortar sites as destinations to touch and feel products is increasingly being recognized. For example, Coast Builders in British Columbia opened showrooms last month to support customers with kitchen improvement projects. The showrooms feature kitchen products and appliances displayed in a boutique environment.

Last week, industrial supplier Wolseley opened a new location that featured a “Wolseley Studio” showroom. The concept is aimed at Wolseley’s residential renovation contractors and gives them options for completing a project with “front of the wall” products like high-end faucets and sinks.

Getting closer to customers with additional locations and expertise has been a strategy for IKEA Canada in recent years. With only 14 stores in this country, the retail giant is prioritizing making access to its product lines easier. Its “Plan and order point” outlets are small shops staffed by IKEA specialists who can consult with customers on product selection and installations.

The Plan and order points will not offer products for purchase on-site. Rather, customers will be able to schedule appointments with IKEA specialists, and a selection of home furnishings will be available to touch and try, including products that require installation and design expertise—provided by IKEA staff.

“We know that many of our customers in the Montreal area face significant travel time to meet IKEA, which is why we’re excited to bring the IKEA experience and our home furnishing expertise closer to our customers in Brossard, Quebec,” said Sandy Evinou, east market area manager at IKEA Canada.

The newest such location will open in Brossard, Que., on April 18. It’s located in the Quartier DIX30 shopping centre on the south shore of Montreal. The Brossard point joins locations in Boisbriand, Que., and Kitchener, Ont. IKEA says it plans to open several more Plan and order points in Canada.

Brad Dixon has joined Global Vision Marketing in the role of general manager. A veteran of the industry on the west coast, Dixon has held senior management roles in sales, merchandising, and distribution with companies including Chalifour Canada, TIMBER MART, and Orgill Canada. Most recently he was a business development manager for Castle Building Centres.

BuildDirect Technologies, an omnichannel building materials retailer, has appointed Jay Allen as general manager. His background includes experience in the apparel, home goods, and flooring sectors at companies including Starbucks, Stainmaster, and Lowe’s. In his new role, he has been tasked to help improve the operational efficiency of BuildDirect’s digital platform.

DID YOU KNOW...?

… that this year’s Hardlines Conference will take place in Whistler, B.C.? it’s being held Oct. 17 and 18 at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler Resort. Speakers include Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux, SVP of affiliates, wholesale, and public affairs at RONA, and Geneviève Gagnon, president of three companies including Gagnon La Grande Quincaillerie. Hardlines subscribers can take advantage of a 20 percent discount on registration, while special pricing is available to dealers.

RETAILER NEWS

GML Produits de Bâtiment is the latest dealer to join TIMBER MART. Located in Mont-Laurier, Que., the building materials dealer will now be able to take advantage of pricing through the buying group, hardware negotiations through the Spancan group, and shipping from TIMBER MART’s distribution centre in St-Nicolas, Que. The store offers DIYers and contractors a wide assortment of building materials, including various types of exterior cladding, culverts, insulation and pressure-treated wood. The business employs a team of 17 full-time staff members and sits on a 330,000-square-foot lot that  includes seven storage buildings and a large lumberyard for outdoor material storage.

Payzant Building Products Ltd. has purchased two new locations: Windsor Home Hardware and Windsor Home Furniture. Based in Lower Sackville, N.S., the “Payzant Team of Home Stores” now consists of nine locations serving the Halifax Regional Municipality, East Hants, West Hants, and the community of Sackville, N.B.

The new Zellers locations in Hudson’s Bay stores across the country feature a new home products brand, Anko, from Australia. Anko features affordable, responsibly-sourced products ranging from toys and pet products to bed, bath and kitchen, accent furniture, and apparel.

Customers are turning to budget retailers for inflation relief, and Montreal-based Dollarama saw the benefit in soaring 2022 sales. It’s now forecasting between 60 and 70 new store openings in 2023.

Chicago-based True Value Co. has purchased a suite of assets from Nova Wildcat Shur-Line Holdings. The acquisitions include the Shur-Line and WordLock brands. The acquisition makes sense: True Value, through its Manufacturing & General Paint division, has been manufacturing many of Shur-Line’s products in its Cary, Ill., facility, for the past three years.

W.W. Grainger has been named one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, receiving the designation for the second year in a row. Fortune analyzed the anonymous survey responses of more than half a million employees of companies with at least 1,000 workers. Among Grainger’s U.S. team members, 89 percent believe that Grainger is a great place to work, 91 percent feel that management’s business practices are ethical and honest, and 94 percent say they feel welcome when they join the company.

SUPPLIER NEWS

Pool and spa firm Trévi has engaged JRTech Solutions to equip its new eco-friendly store in Mascouche, Que., with electronic shelf labels.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

The value of building permits rose by 8.6 percent to $10.7 billion in February. Seven provinces reported monthly increases, including gains of 10.7 percent in Ontario and 25.6 percent in Alberta. Residential permits were up 7.9 percent to $6.6 billion, with single-family permits edging up by 0.5 percent and multi-dwelling component increasing by 13.6 percent. (StatCan)

NOTED

Contractors are seeing signs that the pandemic boom in reno projects may be subsiding, The Globe and Mail reports. “I noted a slowdown starting in last fall, into a complete dead zone in December and January,” Toronto’s Troy Barnes told the paper. Other contractors are seeing jobs getting smaller or being cancelled outright. Realtor Nasma Ali is used to being asked for contractor recommendations but those requests have dried up. “The contractors we know are booked up a few months, but after that they don’t have anything,” she said. “Those projects are probably people who booked them last year.”

OVERHEARD...

“This is when stores like Dollarama shine. We saw it in the 2008 recession. When we’re in a period of high interest rates, inflation, with the threat of job loss, people try to stretch their dollar.”
—Retail analyst Bruce Winder, quoted in The Toronto Star on the success of Dollarama and its intention to open up to 70 stores this fiscal year.