The latest round of announced store conversions by RONA inc. marks the continued rollout of the RONA+ banner to replace some of the big box banners used previously by the retailer. These include Lowe’s, which has exited Canada as a banner. Now, the Quebec-only Réno-Dépôt banner is slated for conversion. Three of the 20 Réno-Dépôt stores in the province have already been converted to RONA+, 16 of them will be converted this year, and one of them will be closed.

RONA says it’s making a significant investment in its store network to position RONA as a retail home improvement leader. RONA plans to convert 19 stores to the RONA+ banner by this fall. There are also three conversions of RONA big boxes to the RONA+ banner, as follows:

• RONA Home & Garden Waterdown – 52 Dundas St. East, Dundas, Ont.
• RONA Home & Garden Winnipeg – 1333 Sargent Ave., Winnipeg
• RONA L’entrepôt Québec – 1500 rue Bouvier, Quebec City

The conversion of the RONA Home & Garden Waterdown store has already begun and will be completed this summer, while RONA Home & Garden Winnipeg and RONA L’entrepôt Québec will celebrate their re-openings this fall. The remaining Réno-Dépôt stores will be converted by that time, as well.

The investment appears to be working, according to RONA. “The conversions to the RONA+ banner that took place outside of Quebec over the last 12 months had a tangible impact on store performance, which was also reflected in our three pilot conversions in Quebec so far,” Mélanie Lussier, spokesperson from RONA’s head office, told Hardlines.

Here’s the list of the 16 Réno-Dépôt stores that will be converted:

• Anjou – 10200 rue Renaude-Lapointe, Anjou, Que.
• Beauport – 225 av. Joseph Casavant, Quebec City
• Boucherville – 1235 rue Nobel, Boucherville, Que.
• Brossard – 7410 boul. Taschereau Ouest, Brossard, Que.
• Candiac – 100 rue de Strasbourg, Candiac, Que.
• Drummondville – 875 rue Hains, Drummondville, Que.
• Sainte-Foy – 3131 av. Blaise-Pascal, Quebec City (shown here)
• Saint-Hubert – 5035 boul. Cousineau, Saint-Hubert, Que.
• LaSalle – 2199 rue Lapierre, LaSalle, Que.
• Laval – 1505 boul. Le Corbusier, Laval, Que.
• Marché Central – 1011 rue du Marché Central, Montreal
• Notre-Dame-de-Grâce – 7277 rue Saint-Jacques, Montreal
• Pointe-Claire – 400 boul. Brunswick, Pointe-Claire, Que.
• Rosemère – 1 boul. Bouthillier, Rosemère, Que.
• Sainte-Dorothée – 800 aut. Chomedey, rue Desserte Ouest, Laval, Que.
• Vaudreuil – 3010 boul. de la Gare, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que.

To test the repositioning strategy of the Réno-Dépôt banner, the three stores in Charlemagne, Sherbrooke, and Gatineau have already made the switch. With these conversions, the company hopes to create momentum for the RONA+ brand as a preferred home improvement destination.

One Réno-Dépôt store is not in the conversion list. The location in Quebec City on rue du Marais is scheduled to close permanently on Aug. 22. That closure will be the final stand for the Réno-Dépôt banner.

A corporate RONA store in Carignan, in the Montérégie region, was also recently closed.

“We are confident that the conversion of the Réno-Dépôt stores along with the other conversion pilots announced recently will also bring positive results that will pave the way for the expansion of RONA+ across the country,” Lussier added.

Home Hardware Stores Ltd. laid off an undisclosed number of its employees on May 28, the company told Hardlines. It’s just the latest retailer to tighten its belt in the midst of the current soft retail market.

Kevin Macnab, president and CEO, said: “It was a difficult day at Home Hardware Stores Ltd. as we implemented a necessary reduction in our workforce to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of our business in response to the constraints of the current economic landscape.”

Macnab would not confirm how many people were affected. “As a privately held company, we are not disclosing the number of positions affected. However, Home Hardware Stores Ltd. conducted a careful, thoughtful, and comprehensive review to minimize the impact on our valued team members and dealers.”

Home Hardware, with some 1,050 stores, is headquartered in St. Jacobs, Ont., with distribution centres in Wetaskiwin, Alta., and Debert, N.S. It also has a paint and chemical plant in Burford, Ont. The company did not say how many employees were affected at each of those four locations.

Home is not the only major banner in our industry to cut staff as the economy slows. RONA inc. cut 500 jobs in June 2023, a further 25 jobs later in the year, and then 300 jobs in January 2024. Those 825 announced cuts amounted to 3.8 percent of 22,000 RONA employees, Hardlines calculates. Canadian Tire cut 3.0 percent of its corporate staff in November 2023, plus another 3.0 percent of its “open jobs.”

The country’s most famous, most storied, and probably most endangered department store chain has been making moves over the past year to exploit more affordable ways to sell merchandise. Now, Hudson’s Bay stores are taking on even more cost-conscious assortments as inflation and affordability concerns among consumers persist.

The re-introduction of the Zellers brand, after a decade’s absence, began in March 2023. This low-cost, mass merchant banner became a pop-up or store-within-a-store with an initial launch of 25 stores, with a full rollout to all 78 Hudson’s Bay locations across the country by October 2023. The Zellers sections measure between 8,000 and 10,000 square feet. Zellers gave the retailer a way to present a more affordable offering without compromising the upmarket positioning of the Hudson’s Bay stores and brand.

Besides Zellers, a store in Toronto was converted last fall into a location for remainder merchandise. The Hudson’s Bay Outlet store, at Eglinton Square in Scarborough, is selling home goods, accessories, clothing, and footwear at deep discounts. Like Zellers, the Outlet store aims to be less fashion-forward and more family-oriented, offering “extreme savings” through a dedicated retail location.

Hudson’s Bay stores are also trying out new assortments and brands aimed at a younger consumer. This spring, it took on Cat & Jack children’s apparel, a house brand of Target stores in the U.S. And earlier this month, that product line was expanded to include swim, outerwear, and shoes.

“Now more than ever parents are looking for stylish and durable clothing that is also affordable for their families,” said Liz Rodbell, president and CEO of Hudson’s Bay, in a press release at the time of the initial launch.

Walmart has increased its range of drone use for deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. The company started with drones in that area last August, but the addition of a couple more Walmart stores with the service at the end of April means up to 75 percent of the city’s residents can now access the service.

Walmart has been working with a number of partners over the past three years or so, most recently in Dallas with Wing, the drone technology subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, plus another provider called Zipline. It initially launched drone-based deliveries from three stores in Northwest Arkansas as far back as late 2021.

The company began studying drone technology as a way to deliver online orders right to its customers’ doors as far back as 2015. The giant retailer had to seek a waiver from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to test drones outdoors to determine whether the drones would be viable for deliveries.

Since 2022, Amazon has been testing drone deliveries of its own, with mixed success.

To order Walmart products via Wing drone delivery, customers download the Wing app and enter their address to check if their home is within the Wing drone delivery range. The service gives customers a delivery option to receive items in 30 minutes or less and some deliveries can happen as fast as 10 minutes, according to Walmart.

The retailer says products that weigh no more than 4.5 kg and meet volume requirements can be used for drone delivery up to five kilometres, all for a fee of $3.99.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Bona, the flooring maintenance and restoration company, has hired Erik Lundgren as territory manager in western Canada. Working out of the Greater Vancouver Area, Lundgren brings 15 years of hardwood flooring experience, including installing and refinishing floors, and a decade of owning and operating his own company. He joins Bona after many years as a flooring consultant and member of the Bona Certified Craftsman Program.

At The Home Depot in Atlanta, Jordan Broggi has been appointed executive vice-president of customer experience and president of online. An 11-year veteran of the company, most recently as SVP and president of online, he will retain leadership of the company’s online business, overseeing online operations, merchandising strategy, and customer experience for Home Depot’s digital properties.

DID YOU KNOW...?

… that the deadline is nearing for entries for the 2024 Outstanding Retailer Awards? ORA submissions are due June 14. Dealers may submit their entries directly to Hardlines. Alternatively, their chain or buying group head offices may select their best dealer(s) and prepare their entries for them in collaboration with the dealer. To enter, please visit www.oras.ca; or contact our Editor-in-Chief, Steve Payne, for further information. (Le formulaire est également disponible en français.)

RETAILER NEWS

Canac’s newest store is now operational in Sorel-Tracey, Que. The store is 40,500 square feet in size, with an additional 31,500-square-foot building materials warehouse and an outdoor lumber yard. After opening to the public earlier this month, it held a ribbon-cutting event last week. Store manager Gilok Chang Kai was joined by two members of the Laberge family, Canac general director Martin Gamache, and merchandising director Daniel Châtelain.

Elena and Daniel Lubimcev, Canadian Tire associate dealers, held the grand re-opening of their renovated store in Gananoque, Ont., earlier this month. The renovations, including planning, took 18 months, Daniel told the Brockville Recorder & Times. The Lubimcevs previously owned a Canadian Tire store in the southwestern Ontario community of St. Marys.

The RONA Foundation, which oversees the philanthropic activities of RONA inc., is inviting Canadian organizations wishing to benefit from its Build from the Heart program to submit their applications. Organizations with eligible projects wishing to benefit from the foundation’s support can submit their applications until June 14 by completing the form here.

Instacart, the online grocery delivery company, and The Home Depot have forged a partnership to offer same-day deliveries. The service will be available from Home Depot’s nearly 2,000 store locations in the U.S. Customers can now order a wide range of home improvement items on Instacart’s platform and have them delivered directly to their homes, with some deliveries in as little as one hour. The rollout follows a pilot with Instacart earlier this year that’s now expanding nationwide.

A Home Hardware dealer in southwestern Ontario was heartened by the support the local community has shown after a devastating fire. Watson’s Home Hardware in Goderich, Ont., burned for more than 12 hours late last month. Owner Richard Watson said his “phone has been going off constantly” as customers and neighbours reached out after the store was reduced to rubble.

Costco Wholesale Corp. reported that Q3 net sales rose by 9.1 percent to $58.52 billion. Canadian comp sales (excluding revenues on fuel) rose by 7.4 percent. Sales at e-retail soared by more than 20 percent.

Metro, Inc., one of the biggest grocery chains in the country with stores throughout Ontario and Quebec, says it will discontinue its association with the Air Miles loyalty program in Ontario. Metro will replace Air Miles with a new program, to be called Moi Rewards. The grocer has been an Air Miles Rewards Program partner since 1998. Two retail banners in our industry continue to use Air Miles: TIMBER MART and Kent Building Supplies.

Amazon has opened its newest robotics fulfilment centre, YYC4. The 2.8-million-square-foot facility in Calgary, which employs more than 1,500 people, features new Amazon Robotics technology to help fulfil customer orders more quickly. With this launch, Amazon now operates five fulfilment centres, one sortation centre, three delivery stations, and two AMXL delivery stations in Alberta.

Retail sales decreased 0.2 percent to $66.4 billion in March, with declines in seven out of nine subsectors. Core retail sales (which exclude fuel and automotive categories) fell by 0.6 percent. Among them, only LBM and garden categories, up 1.3 percent, logged a sales increase in March. (StatCan)

Canada’s Competition Bureau has launched an investigation into Loblaw Cos., owner of the Loblaws and Real Canadian Superstore banners, and Sobeys parent Empire Co. The inquiry concerns provisions in the grocers’ lease agreements, which the competition commissioner believes may be anti-competitive. Empire has slammed the proceedings as “invalid and unlawful,” contending that they were initiated for an “improper purpose.”