May 28, 2018 Volume xxiv, #21

 “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
—Isaac Asimov (Russian-born American writer and professor, 1920-1992)

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Speakers, dates announced for 23rd annual Hardlines Conference

WORLD HEADQUARTERS, Toronto — Retail’s front lines will unite with leading edge thinkers on stage at the 2018 Hardlines Conference. This year’s conference will take place November 13 to 14 at the historic Queen’s Landing in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

With the theme, “The Power of Brand”, the event will bring together some of the top retail brands―and brand leaders―in Canada, including one of Canada’s top brand gurus. Ian Madell, president and managing partner of Level5 Strategy, will kick off the sessions, outlining what’s good and bad regarding our thinking about brands and branding.

Getting more industry specific, Charles Valois, VP central marketing at Lowe’s Canada, will talk about how this retail giant is integrating and leveraging a range of retail brands, namely Lowe’s, RONA, Reno-Depot, and Ace. Darrin Noble, VP of Home Hardware’s Beauti-Tone paint business, will talk about the power of this private brand for Home’s dealers. From Orgill, Catherine Vaugh will outline how this hardware wholesaler is providing integrated marketing strategies for retailers to use to promote their own brand to their respective markets. 

Representing important case studies from the front lines of home improvement retail, Hardlines will present two dealers from opposite ends of the country. Ray Cyr operates RONA Fraser Valley Building Products in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. Jillian Sexton is a TIMBER MART dealer with two stores in Nova Scotia, and now a third in Charlottetown that has taken off.

Steve Buckle, president of Sexton Group, will talk about how his group supports the individual brands of its members.

Also on hand: Dan Tratensek, VP of publishing for the North American Retail Hardware Association; Peter Norman, our economics expert from Altus Group; and Denis Melanson, chair of the Building Material Council of Canada, on the latest initiatives by this organization to attract workers to the home improvement industry.

(For the full lineup of speakers and activities at the 23rd annual Hardlines Conference in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., click here now!)

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Castle Building Centres, Sexton Group top $2 billion with record dealer sales

SPECIAL REPORT — Two of Canada’s largest buying groups got even bigger in 2017. According to the latest research from Hardlines, both Castle Building Centres and the Sexton Group topped $2 billion in total sales from all its dealers last year.

As sales results are calculated for Canada’s top retail groups, and by extension, the size of the retail home improvement industry overall in preparation for the release next month of Hardlines’ annual Retail Report, these milestones signify the ongoing strength of the independents in the Canadian home improvement industry. Castle’s estimated sales climbed from $1.95 billion in 2016 to just over $2 billion last year. Sexton Group enjoyed a lift from $1.8 billion to $2 billion as well.

Both groups have been growing steadily in recent years, through a combination of incremental sales increases post-worldwide recession and through member acquisitions. While all groups and banners have their share of dealers that join and leave in a year, Castle, which is headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., and is celebrating its 55th anniversary this year, has made strong gains recruiting independents, including traditional yards and specialty dealers in lines such as flooring and doors. Sexton, based in Winnipeg, has had wins with the signing of modular home and RTA (ready-to-assemble) producers, many of which have supplied the resource sector in Northern Alberta.

In terms of ranking with other buying groups, they both fall in after Independent Lumber Dealers Co-operative, whose 21 member companies generated about $3.6 billion in combined sales last year; and TIMBER MART with 600-plus dealers and estimated sales that land just shy of $3 billion.

The increases by the buying groups reflect healthier-than-expected growth within Canada’s retail home improvement industry in 2017. According to preliminary numbers from the Retail Report, the industry grew by more than 5% last year, ahead of industry forecasts. Growth for 2018 is likewise being revised upward and will be finalized for the release of this year’s Hardlines Retail Report.

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UFA updates stores with a focus on consistency, product programs

CALGARY — Glenn Bingley is completely upfront about what needed to change at UFA’s retail stores. “I admit there was a need to change the company to meet the needs of our members, and that meant we had to focus on the retail fundamentals.”

United Farmers of Alberta has two businesses: petroleum and agribusiness. The latter consists of 35 UFA Farm & Ranch Supply stores throughout Alberta, one building centre in Fort McMurray, and the commercial agriculture side. In 2015, as the oil industry was suffering, the retail side came under careful scrutiny—and was found wanting. As COO of retail operations for UFA, Bingley heads up that business. “We had lost our retail focus, and we had lost our ability to focus on the local community.”

With a background serving at Home Depot Canada for 17 years, he is now focusing his team’s efforts on improving service and refining product assortments. Both, says Bingley, had suffered in recent years under a previous management with a different retail vision. Stores lacked cohesion and product lines were inconsistent from store to store. “So we’ve been working hard for just over two years to change the business—and the members are really noticing this.”

With a customer base that consists of farmers, ranchers, and rural homeowners, the core products for the Farm & Ranch Supply stores include both commercial items farmers and acreage owners use to maintain their operations and retail home improvement lines for home and farm renovation and repair.

“They expect us to have that stuff in stock,” Bingley says. Consistency of both products and services has been a goal for the stores across the chain. With a more rigorous approach, the company has also gotten better at fine-tuning standardized assortments to fit with the size of each store and the market they serve.

UFA’s biggest lines are fencing and feed. These, for the farm customer, remain the big sellers. But lumber and building materials are also seeing good growth, and he attributes much of that success to the buying teams, headed up by Mark DiGioacchino, UFA’s director of merchandising. Like Bingley, DiGioacchino has big box experience, having worked at both Home Depot Canada and Lowe’s Canada.

“Mark and his team are working to bring in new programs that offer better quality.” Efforts by DiGioacchino are paying off in other ways, Bingley says. “And we’re more competitive now.”

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Pro dealers still taking baby steps toward social media



SPECIAL REPORT — Home improvement stores are still struggling with content management on social media, while their contractor customers aren’t fully experiencing the benefits of online engagement just yet.

Many pro dealers are still trying to figure out how to fit social media into their customer engagement strategies. However, social media is not something they can ignore. In 2017, there were 22.7 million users in Canada, according to Statista DMO. That number is projected to rise to 24.1 million by 2020. Facebook alone has 85 percent market penetration with social media users. And 83 percent of Canadian businesses claim they engage in some kind of social media marketing or brand building.

“It’s not going away, that’s for sure,” says Paul Mutter, purchasing manager for Merkley Building Supply in Ottawa, Ont., which has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Houzz. Merkley specializes in stone and masonry products and uses social media to drive traffic to its website and showroom.

Dauphin, Man.-based McMunn & Yates Building Supplies, with 19 locations in three provinces, appears to be among the more active dealers on social media. It has more than 4,000 Facebook followers, and posts to that platform every other day. It also tweets or retweets every weekday to its 622 Twitter followers.

“Social media is a touch point for us,” says Mike Doyle, owner of The Home Improvement Warehouse in Calgary, Alta. “Millennials don’t shop the same way [as other customers], so how do we talk to them?” He adds that his company’s social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Houzz—are useful for connecting with architects and designers who are often avid followers.

(This is an excerpt of a larger feature that appears in the current edition of our sister publication, Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly. HHIQ is mailed to 11,000 dealers, owners, and managers across the country. Click here to get your own subscription today!)

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At Lowe’s Cos., Marvin Ellison has been named president and CEO, effective July 2. He will also join Lowe’s board of directors. Ellison succeeds Robert Niblock, who previously announced his intention to retire. Ellison is coming over from J.C. Penney Co., where he currently serves as chairman and CEO. He also has an extensive track record in the home improvement industry, having spent 12 years in senior-level operations roles with The Home Depot, where he served as executive vice president of U.S. stores. Before that, he spent 15 years at Target. The Lowe’s board has also appointed Richard Dreiling, a director of Lowe’s since 2012, as chairman.

At Liteline Corporation, Steve McMullen has been promoted to national sales manager. He joined Liteline in 2016 as regional sales manager for Ontario.

At Garaga, Erick Rocheleau has been named vice president of sales for all of Garaga’s operations. Rocheleau most recently spent eight years as sales manager, then sales and strategic development manager, for a major Canadian door and window manufacturer. Before that, he worked for a hardwood manufacturer and a construction product dealer. He reports to Maxime Gendreau, co-president of Garaga. (info@garaga.com)

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CLASSIFIED ADS

Sales Territory Managers | Atlantic Canada

Regal Ideas is the innovative leader in Aluminum Railing and associated outdoor living products to the Canadian Home improvement Industry. We require experienced Building Materials Professionals to expand our sales team and drive sales growth across Canada. If you are a motivated and highly organized team player then we want to speak with you.

Please send resume and salary expectations to Marketing@regalideas.com and you will be contacted if qualifications are commensurate with our requirements.

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