October 15, 2012, Volume xviii, #39
“The reason these businesses don’t change fast enough is because what they do is still working.” — Alan Wurtzel (former CEO of Circuit City and author of “Good to Great to Gone”)
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Jamal Hamad Director of Home Depot’s Pro/Rental unit, joins Hardlines Conference
TORONTO ― Home Depot Canada has recently launched a drywall delivery service for its pro customers (see last week’s issue ―Michael), but that’s just one aspect of the company’s efforts to connect more effectively with its contractor and trade customers.
Jamal Hamad is the director of Commercial and Tool Rental Sales and Operations for The Home Depot Canada . He is also the latest speaker to join this year’s Hardlines Conference, Oct. 25-26 in Toronto.
A 20-year veteran with Home Depot Canada, Hamad has agreed to share with our audience the many ways the country’s second-largest home improvement retailer is ramping up its pro connection, including offering a wider range of tools and services, introducing higher quality brand name tools, and a carefully structuring a social media strategy for contractors.
To learn more about Home Depot’s pro and rental strategy, and to be part of the Hardlines Conference, Oct. 25-26, click here .
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Menards continues its Great Lakes incursion
BAZETTA, OH — This community in the environs of Youngstown, about 100 km east of Cleveland, is the next site for a Menards big box store. The third-largest home improvement retailer in the U.S. (after Home Depot and Lowe’s, it has estimated annual sales in the range of $8-10 billion), Menards has taken over a former Walmart store. According to Vindy.com, it plans to demolish the store and install a 245,000-square-foot outlet of its own.
It’s expected to open in spring 2014.
And it’s just the latest in a series of new locations by Menards that are situated near Canadian markets ― especially in Southern Ontario. Menards is preparing to launch four stores in metro Detroit, a region where it has no presence, according to the Detroit News. Stores in Warren, Livonia, Belleville, and Chesterfield Township, Michigan will open sometime next year, Menards spokesman Jeff Abbott said. The home improvement retailer currently has 22 stores in Michigan.
Based in Eau Claire, WI, the giant big-box retailer has expanded rapidly beyond its Midwestern roots in recent years, mainly in the American North Central and Eastern markets. In the spring of this year, it secured a former school property in Port Huron, MI, right across the river from Sarnia, ON.
Menards has more than 260 stores in 13 states throughout the American Midwest, and has been expanding aggressively into markets in Ohio and Michigan in recent years. And while other retailers are building smaller stores, Menards has been replacing its traditional big boxes with mega-stores that are up to 250,000 square feet in size.
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Walmart gets aggressive about Canadian expansion
MISSISSAUGA, ON — Walmart Canada announced today it will embark on its biggest month of grand openings in its history. By the end of October, the company will complete 30 real estate projects, consisting of two supercentre conversions and 28 new stores that were former Zellers stores. Of the 28 Zellers locations, 10 will be supercentres and 18 will be discount stores. Walmart says it expects the expansion to create more than 3,000 jobs and represent an addition of nearly 2.4 million square feet of retail space. Walmart purchased a total of 39 Zellers stores from Target.
The 30 projects are part of 73 real estate projects planned for the company’s current fiscal year, which will add a total of 4.6 million square feet of retail space by Jan. 31, 2013, and represent an investment of more than $750 million, and more than 14,000 store, trade, and construction jobs.
By the end of this month, the company expects to have 50 real estate projects completed of the 73 planned for the year. This will bring Walmart Canada’s store count to 367 stores (193 supercentres and 174 discount stores). ( Click here to see a complete list of all 30 projects .)
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Consumer confidence rising in Quebec
MONTREAL ― The Quebec consumer confidence index is rising. The majority of Quebecers believe that their own financial situation will remain the same (59%) or improve (23%). In addition, 17% of Quebecers reported they are more optimistic about the economic future of the province, up from just 10% last fall.
These are the findings of a survey by the Altus Group, conducted on behalf of the Retail Council of Quebec. Quebecers’ confidence index is at 96.2%, up 7.9% from last year’s level, putting an end to nearly three consecutive years of decline. “Consumers are more confident, even though they anticipate little change in their personal financial situation,” said MeGaston Lafleur, the association’s president and CEO.
Looking ahead, the survey reveals that 59% of Quebec households expect their financial situation to remain the same in the next six months, down 3% from last year. On the positive side, 23% anticipate an improvement in their financial situation and only 11% expect it to deteriorate. The main contributing factor mentioned is the rising cost of living, with 65% of Quebecers citing this factor, compared to 67% last year.
More than a third of Quebecers (43%) see this as a good time to purchase one or more big-ticket items, an improvement of 4% compared with 2011. Automobiles (7%) continue to rank first among the purchases planned, followed by furniture (4%), and computers (3%).
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Home Hardware Dealer welcomes Home Depot’s “unwanted” pets
ORILLIA, ON ― When a tiny Shi Tzu dog bit the nose of a greeter at the Home Depot in Ottawa in 2011, it became a public relations nightmare for the giant retailer. In fact, the company ended up banning pets from all its stores in Canada.
But one retailer’s nightmare is another’s dream. Orillia Home Hardware Building Centre wasted no time letting its customers know that their pets were welcome. “We really capitalized on that,” says co-owner Bill Ecklund. “We put up signs on the door saying, ‘Please bring your pets in the store.’ We leave out water bowls and give out pet snacks.”
Ecklund says he and his partner John Locke had fun taking advantage of the Home Depot news, which made headlines across the country. “You can respond quickly to these kinds of things. When a company comes out with something negative, we can turn that around and make it a positive.”
But the store’s ability to cater to pets goes beyond hospitality. It also carries a full line of pet products. “On any given day, you’ll find two or three dogs in our store. People are very passionate about their pets,” Ecklund adds.
(Click here to see HARDLINES TV featuring our own re-creation of the curious incident of the dog in the Home Depot.)
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Classifieds
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Program Manager Assistant - Lumber & Building Materials
CASTLE BUILDING CENTERS GROUP LTD. is the premier, independently owned buying group of lumber and building materials in Canada. Located in Mississauga, Ontario, Castle has an immediate opening for a Program Manager Assistant - Lumber & Building Materials.
Job Duties/Responsibilities:
- Execute, prepare, and organize all information flow between the Members, Vendor Partners with respect to programs and products. Liaise with members, Buyers and vendors in various program and product categories
Qualifications:
- Advanced Microsoft Office skills, excellent communication skills and strong organizational skills are a must.
- Bilingual, English & French both written and spoken would be an asset.
- Knowledge of lumber and building material products would be an asset.
Qualified applicants are invited to submit their resumes and salary expectations in Microsoft Word or PDF format to jobs@castle.ca . We thank you for your interest in this position however, only the most qualified applicants will receive responses.
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Member Support Assistant - Hardlines Quebec
CASTLE BUILDING CENTERS GROUP LTD. is the premier, independently owned buying group of lumber and building materials in Canada. As a result of the rapid growth of our Hardware Solution in Quebec, Castle has an immediate opening for a Member Support Assistant - Hardlines Quebec. This position will be based in the province of Quebec.
Job Duties/Responsibilities:
- Execute, prepare, and organize all information flow between the Members Vendor Partner with respect to Hardlines programs and products, in the Province of Quebec
- To manage product assortment needs in a growing Hardware environment.
Qualifications:
- Advanced Microsoft Office skills, excellent communication skills and strong organizational skills are a must.
- Bilingual, English & French both written and spoken.
- Knowledge of Hardlines products would be a distinct asset.
Qualified applicants are invited to submit their resumes and salary expectations confidentially, in Microsoft Word or PDF format to jobs@castle.ca We thank you for your interest in this position however, only the most qualified applicants will receive responses.
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Resumés
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