RONA inc. remains committed to its affiliate dealers under its new ownership, Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux told delegates at the 27th Hardlines Conference. The event was held earlier this month in Whistler, B.C.

The company’s senior vice-president for affiliate dealers, wholesale, and public affairs combined updates from RONA with advice for the industry at large in his address.

“Following the acquisition by Sycamore Partners, we brought the RONA brand back front and centre,” Lamoureux said of the ongoing conversions of Lowe’s-branded stores to the new RONA+ banner.

During his presentation, Lamoureux noted that only hours before, RONA had announced to its dealer network the locations of the next nine conversions. “By year’s end, more than half Lowe’s stores will have been converted,” he said. “Our new ownership understands the value and potential of our RONA affiliated dealer network.”

Regarding RONA’s commitment to independent dealers, Lamoureux admitted that the model has advantages of its own, which fit into RONA’s overall strategy. Independent dealers are “often in more remote areas where big corporate players don’t set up shop,” he said, adding they also have the personal knowledge of their local markets to customize their mix.

That can give independents an advantage in an environment where consumers are increasingly favouring proximity. “People don’t necessarily want to drive 20 or 30 minutes to get supplies for a project, especially when they realize they need more of a product or are missing something.

“The pandemic encouraged Canadians everywhere to prioritize buying local. I encourage you to capitalize on that.”

It’s not only in rural areas that small independents can thrive, either. “We see a clear need for more urban stores that carry the essentials that homeowners need,” Lamoureux observed. Moreover, e-commerce can enable even the smallest stores to offer a wider variety of products than they could accommodate on-site.

“No matter how you choose to do it, if you’re not online yet, you need to work on getting there as soon as possible,” he underscored. “Dealers who have a good online offering and offer buy-online, pick-up in-store can turn their customers from competitors who either don’t offer online shopping or don’t have a bricks-and-mortar store.”

Ultimately, the strength of the local independent lies in service. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of training your staff to support the top-notch experience you need to deliver to your customers.” (PHOTO: Josef Povazan)

Kent gets uncharacteristically scary—and funny—for Hallowe’en

While it’s well known as a worthy competitor in Atlantic Canada and well regarded as a reliable retail customer, Kent Building Supplies is not known for its sense of humour. With the exception of some very funny ads that come out of Quebec (that’s another story for another day!—Editor), home improvement retailers in Canada have typically provided a very straightforward and upright promotional face to customers.

But a new ad for the Saint John-based retailer, a division of J.D. Irving Ltd., breaks the mould. The bit ties in with the Hallowe’en season with a fictional depiction of a pair of vampires that are regular customers at Kent.

According to online advertising trade publication The Message, the concept was originally pitched to Kent by Accomplice Content Supply Co., a production and animation agency in Halifax.

The video, which runs for almost three and a half minutes, also has a few 30-second variations. It focuses on various advantages to shopping at Kent, including the hospitality of its employees. Since vampires can’t enter a home without being invited, they wait until a Kent greeter cheerfully waves them inside. While the rest of the staff cautiously admit they welcome the business from these long-time customers, they are admittedly wary. “We just keep distance from them when, um … they haven’t eaten.”

The bit leads to the vampire customers buying some Minwax stain, which they take back to their home and use to coat a coffin.

The vampires, a 300-year-old couple named Zaros and Lenora, are played by Logan Robbins and Aryelle Morrison, two actors based in Atlantic Canada. They likewise share the joy they get in shopping at the store, which sells “high-quality products that will last as long as we do,” says the Zaros character. “Ever since Kent opened 40 years ago, it’s been an after-life changer.”

(Watch the ad in its entirety here. It’s great fun!—Editor)

BMR adds to its dealer development team in response to membership growth

BMR Group has been adding to its business development team over the recent months. The group has brought new staff on board to support the growth it says it has seen from stores joining BMR from competing banners.

Based in Boucherville, Que., on Montreal’s south shore, BMR has about 275 members (source: 2023 Hardlines Market Share Report). While the majority of these stores are in Quebec, the group is committed to growth across the country, focusing in the near term on the Ontario market and parts of the Maritimes.

However, efforts continue in the group’s home province as well. The most recent new member-dealer is Groupe Anctil, which has operated in Quebec’s Eastern Townships for five generations. Today, it operates two renovation centres, in St-Denis-de-Brompton and Magog, and has co-ownership of a prefabricated wood structures plant, also located in Magog. In addition, Groupe Anctil operates a Granby-based company specializing in wastewater, sewage, and water treatment.

A grand reopening, hosted by Quebec strongman and BMR ambassador Hugo Girard, was held earlier this month.

To support this ongoing growth both inside Quebec and beyond, BMR has added some new faces to its dealer development team. Fady Faddoul joined BMR in July as business development advisor. He was previously at Ford Motor Co. Cris Morton has been in a similar role since May. His experience includes 12 years with Unilever and seven years with Church and Dwight Co. Melanie Johnson recently joined BMR as business development advisor for Atlantic Canada.

These individuals join fellow business development advisors Gilles Parenteau, who has been with BMR since 2017, and Patrick Cadieux, who came on board in 2015 after 13 years as a hardware store owner himself. The team is overseen by Simon Gouin, BMR’s senior director of business development for eastern Canada since 2021.

More than any other speaker, Romain Mercier brought the e-commerce angle to the 27th annual Hardlines Conference held two weeks ago in Whistler, B.C.

But for all the digital technology referenced in his talk, Mercier, a founding partner of the PS&Co Data Lab in Vancouver, had a fundamentally human message: “Over the decades, nothing much has changed. Most purchases are emotionally driven. E-commerce is still commerce between people. And people do business with people they trust, with whom they share mutual values. This is not rocket science.”

Mercier led off his presentation with a carrot and a stick. The carrot was that there is going to be—if Ottawa has its way—a home-building boom between now and 2030 like Canada has not seen before. “The federal government has finally realized that to get affordable housing we need to double the amount of housing being constructed in the next seven years,” Mercier said. This obviously provides unparalleled opportunities for our industry.

The stick was that retailers are generally in the stone age when it comes to reaching out to customers, digitally, Mercier suggested. “Retailers don’t know very much about their customers,” he said. “Each customer is a persona, is part of a segment. There’s a tendency for retailers to do one-size-fits-all marketing. When, if you knew more about your customer, you could send something personalized.”

But the big question is, how do we do that?

Mercier is a big believer in collecting data, online, about customers. It’s what he does at PS&Co and what he has done over more than 15 years working for some of the biggest names in online tech. “Most businesses have five or fewer attributes [discrete pieces of information] for each customer. What can you say to your customer with that information? Nothing!”

Mercier closed his presentation with a summary of the funding available from the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP). Ottawa has backed this program, first announced in April 2021, with $1.4 billion in grants to small and medium-sized enterprises, plus up to $2.6 billion in interest-free loans from the Business Development Bank of Canada. (PHOTO: Josef Povazan)

DID YOU KNOW...?

… that you can update your subscriptions, place orders, and book your Classified Ads by contacting the newest addition to our Hardlines Team, Jillian MacLeod. She is the person to get in touch with if you want to update your subscription to Hardlines Weekly Report, or to book a Classified Ad. So reach out to Jillian if you need help!

RETAILER NEWS

IKEA Canada CEO Selwyn Crittendon says the company will dramatically overhaul its omnichannel and fulfilment processes in the coming years. Speaking to Retail Insider about two months into his role, Crittendon said that as stores get turned into fulfilment units, some of them are doing their omnichannel processes entirely on their own, without being connected to a central hub or DC.

Giant Tiger Stores will open its second location in Saint John, N.B., on Nov. 4. The 16,675-square-foot store is located at 88 Consumers Dr. The grand opening will include the usual Giant Tiger private-label Marché giveaways, a gift card to the first 100 customers, and an appearance by the chain’s mascot, Friendly, the Giant Tiger. The company now has over 260 locations across Canada.

The RONA Foundation, which oversees the philanthropic activities of RONA inc., completed a new campaign, Home Sweet Home, which ran from September 1 to October 9. Thanks to the involvement of employees and the generosity of customers, more than $730,000 was raised for revitalizing living environments or easing access to housing for survivors of domestic violence and their children, low-income families, and people with special needs or mental health issues. The 175 organizations were selected separately by each local RONA team.

Discount department store banner Zellers has brought back its mascot, a stuffed teddy bear named Zeddy. The plush toy, which stands about 15 inches tall, is available for purchase in-store since Oct. 27 and online beginning today. The retailer has committed to donate $5 out of every $15 sale to support Campfire Circle, a charitable organization that supports children with cancer or serious illness and their families.

Kent Building Supplies in Antigonish, N.S., is taking an additional order on deck chairs that support adults with intellectual disabilities. Kent partners with CACL Antigonish to the sell the chairs, which are made by staff and clients of the non-profit. The Antigonish store had excess inventory this year. Jeff Teasdale, executive director of CACL, told local radio station CJFX-FM that Kent has been supportive in marketing the product and in employing its clients.

York Supplies, a 75-year-old hardware store in Birmingham, England, fell on hard times post-Brexit and post-Covid. Local residents were invited to invest in the business and form a single-store co-operative, in what the BBC called the “first time in England a hardware shop had been saved in this way.” The equivalent of $588,000 in funding was raised in just six weeks.

An employee at a San Rafael, Calif., Home Depot store was arrested last week after an internal investigation pointed to her as a suspect in the embezzlement of $1.2 million over the past year. The employee is accused of taking various amounts out of the store’s cash registers, ranging from $25,000 in a month up to almost $174,000 in August of this year. The woman worked in finance at the store. Police said that her house contained “an exorbitant amount of luxury clothing and handbags.”

Third-quarter sales for West Fraser Timber Co. reached $1.71 billion, up six percent from $1.61 billion in the second quarter of 2023. Earnings for the quarter were $159 million, compared with a loss of $131 million in the second quarter. The company expects total lumber shipments for the year to be similar to 2022, as it has not experienced the severe transportation challenges faced last year. For its North American engineered wood products segment, demand has remained relatively robust, leading West Fraser to forecast that its 2023 OSB shipments will reach levels as high as 6.4 billion square feet.

Toolquip’s Agency’s John Ross, age 67, died of cancer on Oct. 4. Ross was the owner of Toolquip Agency Ltd., a Toronto-based sales and marketing company. After retiring in 2016, he continued his activities as a volunteer with Canada Dog Guides, Canadian Adaptive Snow Sports, and Para Alpine Ski Racing. Ross is survived by his wife, Brenda Ross, his daughters Lindsay, Lauren, and Meg, sons-in-law Eli Winterfeld and Scott Grundy, and granddaughter Abigail.

Investment in building construction rose by 1.1 percent to $17.9 billion in August. The residential sector was up 1.6 percent to $11.9 billion, while the non-residential sector edged up 0.1 percent to $5.9 billion. Following five months of consecutive declines, investment in residential building construction rose 1.6 percent to $11.9 billion. Single-family home investment rose 2.4 percent to $5.9 billion, with six provinces posting gains. (StatCan)