October 9, 2017 Volume xxiii, #38

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
—C.S. Lewis (Irish novelist, essayist, professor, and poet, 1898-1963)

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Home Hardware launches commercial maintenance program at latest market

ST. JACOBS, Ont. ― At Home Hardware's latest market, we saw lots of attention paid to getting dealers to go after a big, but often overlooked segment: the commercial customer. That individual may be a janitor, custodian, property manager, cleaning crew, or institutional purchasing agent. The category, sometimes called maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO), has been gaining attention in this sector as both Home Depot and Lowe’s in the U.S. have been buying up companies in recent months that are focused directly on MRO.

Home Hardware has also been wooing this segment for a number of years. It even has a product catalogue for commercial maintenance customers. At the co-op’s latest dealer market, held last month in St. Jacobs, Ont., Home introduced a new robust commercial maintenance program. Seminars were held during the fall market in St. Jacobs last month, conducted by Alex Goyette, who is in charge of commercial sales.

Home created a handbook for dealers that laid out the full range of the program’s benefits, offering up an integrated marketing communications plan that is designed to reach end users across a range of promotional platforms. That includes a newly-negotiated preferred supplier status for Home Hardware with the chain of hotels that includes Best Western. It also includes a new software platform that will enable contractors and other commercial customers to order more easily online.

Adam Busscher of Picton Home Hardware Building Centre in Picton, Ont., was one of the dealers who attended a commercial maintenance seminar. “It’s a huge growth opportunity for us,” he says. Like many Home dealers, it’s not a customer base he’s taken advantage of in the past. But he got the bug at the latest market. “It’s something we need to grow,” he says.

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A focus on farm and hardware: in conversation with UFA’s Glenn Bingley



CALGARY ― UFA may be largely a farm and feed co-op, but its 35 farm and hardware stores in Alberta drive enough sales to put it firmly in the top 20 of retail groups in this sector in Canada.

That division is headed up by Glenn Bingley, who spent 17 years at Home Depot Canada before joining UFA to take over its sporting goods business, Wholesale Sports. But UFA is in the process of exiting that business (it had already sold its U.S. sporting goods business in 2013) and Bingley looks forward to focusing on the hardware and home improvement side, which operates under the Farm & Ranch Supply banner. “The core of this business is agro and petroleum,” he says. “Sporting goods wasn’t core to UFA.”

The company has already been working on updating its Farm & Ranch Supply stores, focusing on what Bingley calls “the fundamentals,” all aimed at improving the store experience for customers. “We’ve made good strides with Farm & Ranch in the last 18 months,” he adds.

The stores have benefited from standardized assortments, improved point-of-purchase, and from merchants working more closely with vendors to get programs that better suit the rural customer. Categories that have been fine-tuned include feed, fencing, livestock supplies, and LBM assortments. “We’re working with our vendors to change up those assortments.”

Bingley notes that the move to more standardized assortments across a number of lines is being further tweaked by more attention to regional needs of individual stores. “Our field merchandising team reports back to the merchants on what customers are looking for.”

Coming from a company that has been slow to open stores in the last decade, Bingley is familiar with the concept of increasing sales from existing square footage. UFA is not looking to add more stores any time soon, he says. “It’s all about driving productivity now and increasing same-store sales.”

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Ace Hardware acquires e-commerce website

Ace Hardware Corp. has purchased the majority stake in e-commerce startup The Grommet. The website markets and sells new and innovative products created by independent entrepreneurs, also known as makers. Since its inception in 2008, it has launched dozens of popular brand names, including FitBit, IdeaPaint, OtterBox, SimpliSafe and SodaStream. To date, the company has launched more than 2,500 consumer products and amassed a community of more than three million early adopters and supporters.

“We both stand as strong advocates for the underdog. From the very beginning we have appreciated our alignment in support for and advancement of the independent maker,” says Ace President and CEO John Venhuizen. “Under Ace’s ownership, I believe The Grommet can offer our customers more of that which fuels global economies and makes America special—the unbridled creativity of the local entrepreneur.”

Ace Hardware and The Grommet first began working together in 2016 as part of a collaboration to bring new, unique, and previously undiscovered products from independent makers into Ace stores.

Ace Hardware is now the majority controlling owner of The Grommet, but the company’s original founders, Joanne Domeniconi and Jules Pieri, and their employees will continue to have some equity ownership of the company. Ace has no plans to change the company’s strategic direction.

Ace says retail analytics from its stores demonstrate significant value in aligning physical stores with a digital discovery platform. Current customers of The Grommet visit Ace more than 50% more times than the average Ace Rewards customer and spend 2.8 times as much, the company notes.

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Executive spotlight: Peavey CEO will present at Hardlines Conference


WORLD HQ, Toronto ― For a company that likes to operate “under the radar,” as its president likes to say, Peavey Industries made a lot of news last year when it announced the acquisition of TSC Stores. The combined farm and hardware companies now represent combined sales of almost half a billion dollars with a store network with reach across the country, from British Columbia to Ontario.

We are pleased to announce that Doug Anderson, president of Peavey, will join the 22nd annual Hardlines Conference as a presenter.

TSC Stores is a chain of 51 farm and hardware outlets stretched out across Ontario, and into Manitoba, which focus on rural, pet, and agrarian markets. In July 2016, Peavey Industries, which owns 36 Peavey Mart stores in Western Canada, announced it had taken a stake in TSC. The investment in TSC includes a transition period that will allow Peavey to acquire complete ownership over time.

Delegates at the Hardlines Conference, which will be held November 14 to 15 in Niagara Falls, Ont., will learn how the corporate cultures of these two regional giants are merging to create a business that is focused on the rural customer.

Other retail speakers presenting at this year’s conference include Daniel Lampron, general manager of Quebec-based retail chain Patrick Morin; Sylvain Prud’homme, CEO of Lowe’s Canada; Rick McNabb, vice president of marketing and sales for Home Hardware Stores; and Jim Thompson, former COO of Wal-Mart China and former senior executive at Wal-Mart Canada.

Other thought leaders on the podium this year include Dan Tratensek, VP of publishing for the North American Retail Hardware Association, economist Peter Norman of Altus Group, and Robert Howard of the U.S. retail consultancy Kurt Salmon.

The Hardlines Conference, which will play host to some 200 industry dealers, suppliers, and executives, is being held November 14 to 15 at the Sheraton on the Falls hotel in Niagara Falls, Ont.

(For more information about the 22nd annual Hardlines Conference, click here now!)

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Matthew Beasley is now export manager for Normerica International Corp., a maker of branded and private-label pet products. He previously spent seven years at ITW as marketing manager, then most recently entered the pet products sector as VP sales and marketing for TLC Pet Food for two years. (matthewb@normericainc.com)

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