Homeowners keep spending less on renos: HomeStars survey

HomeStars, the online contractor referral service, published its fifth annual Reno Report last week. It revealed that Canadian homeowner respondents reported spending an average of $12,300 on renovations in the past 12 months. That was down from about $13,000—or 5.4 percent—in the 2022 Reno Report.

HomeStars also asked homeowners to predict their anticipated renovation spending over the next 12 months. That number, $10,264, is a significant 14.1 percent decline from the previous year’s average spend.

“Weather-related events” were a major driver of Canadian renovations, the survey said. One-third of responding homeowners had completed emergency repairs because of weather-related events, peaking in Atlantic Canada at 41 percent.

However, homeowners do anticipate some reno activity, according to the survey. One-third intend to postpone planned renovations due to rising interest rates. But nearly three-quarters of respondents planned to do at least one home renovation in the next 12 months.

Sustainability was a consideration for the majority of respondents, with almost 80 percent citing it as important when choosing building materials for renovations. However, only 59 percent who renovated in the past 12 months have used green products. Older homeowners were significantly more inclined to consider sustainability when choosing building materials for renovations, at 41 percent compared to the 23 to 39 age group at 26 percent.

On a regional basis, respondents in British Columbia were most likely to have additional real estate, with 21 percent owning an income property in that province, versus 16 percent nationally. While 79 percent of Canadian homeowners surveyed had the cash on hand to pay for renovations, Albertans took the top spot, with 85 percent reporting they have the cash on hand, outpacing the national average.

Retailers beef up their bricks-and-mortar value with showroom formats

The role of a hardware store or building centre as a source of advice and product knowledge helps dealers combat the prevalence of online shopping. But traditional stores face the likelihood of continued sales erosion by e-commerce. More and more retailers are adding specialty showrooms as a way to increase their “high-touch” presence while expanding their product lines.

Coast Builders, which includes three RONA stores on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, opened showrooms early this year to support customers with kitchen improvement projects. The “Appliance & Design Showroom” features kitchen products and appliances displayed in a boutique environment.

The concept aims to help customers, both DIY and pro, with their kitchen renovations, offering kitchens and appliances displayed in vignettes so customers can envision the complete project. The RONA showroom in Sechelt is 2,500 square feet in size, while the store in Madeira Park represents 1,800 square feet.

“We went from zero sales in kitchens and appliances to it now accounting for 7.5 percent of our overall sales,” says Russ Jones, president and owner of Coast Builders.

The offering also gave his stores a hedge against deflated lumber and commodity prices. “This was really good for us.”

RONA is not alone, as other retailers are seeing the value of a more refined showroom approach. Plumbing supply chain Wolseley has been rolling out “Studio,” a showroom in some of its stores that features higher-end fixtures and fittings, complete with an in-house designer to offer contractors suggestions for their end-user customers.

There are currently 200-plus Wolseley locations in Canada and about 26 of them have a Studio, with more planned. The target customer is the residential contractor, but staff at the Wolseley Studio can also work directly with the end user and pick the appropriate product for the contractor to then install, saving the contractor time and money.

“I would say that the Showroom concept offers the ‘consultative’ approach to renovating and creating a homeowner’s dream look for a bathroom or kitchen,” says Harry Kandilas, Wolseley Canada’s director of showrooms. “Utilizing one of the Wolseley Studios or Kitchen and Bath classics showrooms gives the end user the opportunity to touch and feel some of the higher-end brands that are not always available at the big box stores.”

Kandilas says the showrooms attract many designers, “but we also work closely with the contractors—be it renovator, plumber, etc.—who will usually send the client to our showrooms for that personal tour and review of their needs.”

Getting closer to customers with additional locations and expertise has been a strategy for IKEA Canada in recent years. With only 14 stores in this country, the retail giant is prioritizing making access to its product lines easier. Its “Plan and order point” outlets are small shops staffed by IKEA specialists who can consult with customers on product selection and installations.

The showroom concept is catching on internationally as well. Byggmax is a large home improvement retailer based in Sweden. It’s been trying out a new concept, called “Byggmax Studio.” The third such store will open in the spring of 2024 in in Umeå, Sweden. The concept, aimed at the do-it-for-me customer, offers options for affordable interior renovation and design, with a focus on tile, flooring, and paint.

The battle among retail loyalty program continues to heat up

Every Monday until Nov. 6, riders who tap onto Toronto’s public transit system with their Tims credit cards can save up to $10. Tim Hortons kicked off the campaign on Sept. 25, the latest example of the ways retailers are leveraging their rewards programs.

The Tims card is powered by Calgary-based Neo Financial, which as of last spring had more than 10,000 retail partners, including Hudson’s Bay Co. and Walmart, and continues to add more companies.

In our industry, Canadian Tire has been particularly aggressive in cultivating its Triangle Rewards program. Earlier this year, it rolled out a paid subscription tier, Triangle Select. But other retailers have recognized the value of these plans, which offer savings to shoppers and valuable customer data to businesses.

Scotiabank’s Scene+ program was originally simply Scene, a partnership with Cineplex that allowed customers to accumulate points they could redeem at box offices and concession stands. It’s been expanding dramatically to a wide network of retail partners, including Empire Co., parent of Sobeys, IGA, and Safeway grocery stores. Home Hardware Stores is its exclusive home improvement partner.

Lowe’s Canada, now RONA inc., signed on to Avion Rewards last fall, after dropping Air Miles. At the time, benefits were limited to holders of RBC credit or debit cards, but RBC announced it will offer travel benefits to clients of other financial institutions.

Air Miles, for its part, lost several key partners in the last few years—not only RONA, but also Staples, Empire Co., and Ontario’s liquor stores. The program’s owner, LoyaltyOne, filed for bankruptcy in both Canada and the U.S. earlier this year. In June, Bank of Montreal acquired the program, whose retail partners include TIMBER MART, Kent Building Supplies, Dollarama, and Shell.

Analyst Bruce Winder told Retail Insider that with the revival of multi-partner loyalty programs, retail is coming full circle. “If you go back to the loyalty space about 20 years ago, even 15 years ago, a lot of programs were sort of tied with a coalition, like a network,” he said.

That trend later gave way to a landscape with many retailers trying to go it alone, but now “maybe we’re starting to see a bit of a rebirth and a re-linkage of coalitions.”

DID YOU KNOW…?

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RETAILER NEWS

Giant Tiger Stores will hold a grand opening of its newest store in London, Ont., on Oct. 14. This will be the fourth location in that city for the Ottawa-based discount retailer. The 18,800-square-foot store is located at 50 North Centre Rd. The grand opening will include giveaways, a gift card to the first 100 customers, and, of course, a visit from Friendly, the Giant Tiger.

Home Hardware Stores has presented its Walter J. Hachborn Store of the Year Award to Wilson’s Home Hardware Building Centre in Barrington Passage, N.S. The store also received the nod for Best Home Hardware Building Centre in the Atlantic Region. Dealer-owner Mike Wilson accepted the honours at Home Hardware’s Homecoming event last month in Toronto. His grandfather, Buzz Wilson, first began talks with Home Hardware co-founder Walter Hachborn in 1965 about joining the nascent Home Hardware banner, which he did two years later.

Lowe’s has made a deal with Carhartt, the workwear clothing brand, to add an assortment of Carhartt products online and in select stores in the U.S. The collection features Carhartt’s signature duck jackets, and vests, as well as hoodies, T-shirts, workwear pants, and beanies. Currently, the collection is available at roughly 250 Lowe’s stores across the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest – with about 250 more stores in Texas, the Southeast and California adding Carhartt products in early 2024.

Nathalie Bellerive, dealer-owner of Matériaux Lavergne Home Hardware Building Centres in Charette and Saint-Étienne-des-Grès, Que., has acquired her third store. Matériaux Lavergne Inc. Saint-Paulin, which recently celebrated its official opening, boasts 4,600 square feet of retail space and an additional 1,700 square feet of warehouse space.

The Atlantic Building Supply Dealers Association will hold another HR conference later this fall. The ABSDA Human Resources Conference will be held Nov. 16 at the Halifax Convention Centre, with a theme of “Navigating the labour shortage.”  Presenters will include Pierre Battah, an award-winning leadership and workplace specialist (This guy’s good!—your impartial Editor). Anyone who wants to attend should register by Oct. 16. (Click here for more information and to register.)

Leviton was at the top of the list of vendors recognized recently by Home Depot’s Atlanta head office as Innovation Award winners. The overall winner was a range of electrical switches and outlets called Decora Edge, manufactured by Leviton. They “make installing light switches and outlets faster, safer, and more efficient,” Home Depot said in a release.

Bill Lee, former president and CEO of the North American Hardware and Paint Association, died on Sept. 29. Lee was a passionate supporter of the independent home improvement retail industry, serving the NHPA for over 20 years before retiring in 2017. Lee started his work with the association, then known as the National Retail Hardware Association, as an outside marketing consultant for 12 years before starting as the association’s marketing director in 1996. In 2008, he took over as CEO. He also served as general chairman of the International Hardware Association.

The National Retail Federation’s annual Hallowe’en survey has found that a record 73 percent of U.S. consumers will celebrate the holiday this year, up from 69 percent last year. The average planned expenditure is $108.24 per person, breaking the previous record of $102.74, set in 2021. In total, Hallowe’en spending in the U.S. is expected to hit $12.2 billion this year, up from last year’s $10.6 billion.

Vendors want to know what buyers look for, so we asked them to tell us

The most important business relationship most vendors will ever have is with their key account buyers. And while those relationships build up over time and are based on trust and personal connection, buyers generally have a hard list of expectations of what vendors need to do to make that relationship successful.

In the next edition of our sister publication, Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly, our editors spoke with 10 merchants from the top retailers, wholesalers, and buying groups to get some insights into the buyer role—from their perspective.

When it comes to new products, Marie-Yannick Carrière doesn’t miss a beat. The category director for paint at RONA inc. says she is always on the lookout for four things: innovation, a product that solves a problem, features clear packaging for the consumer, and is well priced. “To illustrate what I mean by problem solving, let’s take paint that dries quickly, is more washable, more durable, or different products for different applications, for example.”

Kristen Fromm, housewares merchandise manager for Home Hardware Stores (shown here at last year’s Home Hardware Homecoming Market), agrees that products like paint need to address specific consumer concerns. “They are looking for a specific paint for a specific need. This requires guidance and advice, as customers are increasingly involved in their renovation projects, and paint is often at the heart of these projects.”

From vendors, she expects innovation, exclusivity, and competitive pricing. “However, the partnership goes beyond the products and pricing—is the supplier going to provide cost concession when market shifts occur? Are they meeting shipping dates? And, just as important, are they communicating in a timely manner when shipping dates need to be adjusted?”

John Magri is the director of programs at the Sexton Group. He observes that a great vendor relationship is built on the vendor’s “desire to grow their business with us, to grow the relationship.” He stresses the importance of good communications and a willingness to work with his group through “the ups and downs for the long term.”

When asked what he looks for in new products, Randy Martin, vice-president of procurement for TIMBER MART, said, “Innovation, particularly as building codes and the needs of contractors evolve. Our vendor partners are key to keeping our program offerings to our members current and relevant.”

All the merchants we spoke with cited the importance of clear and ongoing communication from vendors, as well as a desire to take a long-term approach to success, rather than looking to make a quick deal. And, adds Mathieu Villemaire, the category director for hand tools at RONA, “a steady supply of quality products.”

(The full story on what buyers are looking for, and some of the new products they are dealing with, appears in the upcoming edition of Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly, our print magazine for dealers and managers. HHIQ is free to retailers, and suppliers can subscribe for a fee. Click here to start or update your subscription to HHIQ!)

New RONA+ banner continues to appear on more former Lowe’s stores nationally

The company formerly known as Lowe’s Canada continues to reposition its stores to align with its updated identity. RONA inc. held simultaneous board cuttings on Sept. 21 to mark the conversion of another 15 Lowe’s stores to the new RONA+ banner.

The latest stores to adopt the yellow-bannered RONA+ brand, all in Ontario, are in Barrie, Belleville, East Gwillimbury (pictured here), Kanata, Kingston, London North West, London South West, Maple, Nepean, Orleans, Oshawa, Ottawa Gloucester, Pickering, Sudbury, and Whitby.

These fresh conversions follow closely on the heels of nine others that were made barely a week earlier—and the retailer’s first conversions outside Ontario. These stores are in British Columbia (Vancouver Grandview, Nanaimo, Victoria Langford, Victoria Tillicum, Abbotsford), Saskatchewan (Regina South, Saskatoon West), and Manitoba (Winnipeg East, Winnipeg South).

As part of the process, all the former Lowe’s stores have remained open during the facelifts.

“The conversion of the former Lowe’s stores to the brand-new RONA+ banner is part of a wider plan aimed at redefining how Canadians shop for home improvement and represents a significant local investment,” RONA said in a release. “Through this process, the company is looking to build on the strong legacy of the RONA brand and build momentum for this beloved Canadian-operated household name.”

(Jean-Sébastien Lamoureaux is the senior vice-president of RONA affiliates, wholesale, and public affairs. He will be our keynote speaker at the 27th annual Hardlines Conference, Oct. 17 and 18 in Whistler, B.C., in partnership with the BSIA of B.C. Delegates will get the lowdown on RONA’s plans for its new format stores, plus its relationship with its affiliate dealers. Not to be missed. Sign up now!)

IKEA is investing in bigger, more tech-friendly stores, better fulfilment

IKEA Canada intends to invest heavily in its fulfilment capabilities in the Greater Vancouver and Toronto Areas over the next couple of years. The multi-million-dollar investment will result in expanded fulfilment capabilities at IKEA’s store in Richmond, B.C.

When completed, the store will be about 50 percent larger, thanks to the addition of a two-storey wing with a floor area of 162,400 square feet. That will grow the total floor area of the store from 345,000 square feet to more than 507,000 square feet. It will provide enhanced click-and-collect and locker pickup services, while supporting truck, parcel, and collection-point delivery throughout the Lower Mainland.

IKEA also has a 330,000-square-foot distribution centre located in an industrial park in southeast Richmond.

In the Greater Toronto Area, the retailer is planning a number of expansion projects throughout southwestern Ontario, including a new customer distribution centre in Hamilton that is expected to be up and running in 2025. Its stores in Etobicoke and Vaughan will also undergo expansions by 2025 to strengthen their store fulfilment capabilities.

The expansions will also enable IKEA to better maintain inventory of high-demand products while keeping delivery times as short as possible. The company also has ambitions to build a new fulfilment facility in Hamilton, Ont.

The Hudson’s Bay department store chain has remade an existing store in the eastern suburbs of Toronto into a deep-discount location. The new Hudson’s Bay Outlet store, at Eglinton Square in Scarborough, is selling home goods, accessories, clothing, and footwear at up to 75 percent off.

The chain has tried the discount model before—years ago—but ultimately closed those outlets in Montreal and Toronto. Earlier this year, it capitalized on the consumer demand for its original discount retail concept when it began opening “pop-up” Zellers stores within its Hudson’s Bay stores across the country.

Like Zellers, the Outlet store is looking to be less fashion-forward and more family-oriented, offering “extreme savings” through a dedicated retail location. “Transforming our Eglinton Square location into an outlet store for customers creates a fun and unique shopping destination, distinct from the Hudson’s Bay full-line experience,” said Kosi Sivasankaran, Hudson’s Bay’s chief stores officer.

For Hudson’s Bay, adding an outlet store and reviving the Zellers brand gives the retailer a conduit for low-priced assortments that could help the company compete with discounters and dollar stores, which flourished early in the pandemic.

The rollout of the Zellers locations has spanned the last several months. The Zellers rebirth started as a series of pop-up boutiques within Hudson’s Bay stores. A similar pop-up Zellers section was launched earlier this summer at Hudson Bay’s flagship Queen Street store in Toronto (shown here). On Sept. 27, the latest store-within-a-store concept Zellers went up at the Hudson’s Bay store in Brampton at Bramalea Civic Centre, west of Toronto.

Zellers also appears in pop-up form at 23 other locations. The pop-ups range in size from 1,000 to 2,800 square feet and serve as strategic market tests to determine future Zellers store locations. In anticipation of the pending Christmas holiday season, Hudson’s Bay intends to add Zellers in all 78 stores across the country before the end of this month.

Gino DiGioacchino has been appointed president and CEO of Giant Tiger Stores Ltd. He formerly served on the Giant Tiger board and as interim president and CEO. DiGioacchino replaces Paul Wood, who held the CEO role for slightly more than two years before leaving the company in November 2022. DiGioacchino is best known to this industry for his time at The Home Depot Canada. As VP of merchandising, he was considered the number two in the company after then-president Annette Verschuren. He left Home Depot Canada in 2011 to become chief merchandising officer at Walmart Canada, a position he held until 2016. He joined the Giant Tiger board in 2017.

Stéphane Gaumond has joined AD as director, business development, for the Building Supplies – Canada division. Bringing with him over 25 years of industry experience, including stints at Metrie, Continental Building Products, and WSB Titan, he will now manage all aspects of business development for the division’s presence across Canada while maintaining a special emphasis on eastern Canada. He is based in Montreal.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the Hardlines Conference is just two weeks away in Whistler, B.C., Oct. 17 and 18? Our keynote speakers include executives from RONA, Home Depot, Federated Co-operatives’ leading dealers on the west coast, representatives from Taiga, Johns Manville, RONA, Home Hardware, Home Depot, Castle, Sexton Group, Federated Co-op, and Taiga. As a Hardlines Premium Member-Subscriber, you get a 20 percent discount on your conference registration (which closes Oct. 4). Got a question? Contact our amazing Marketing and Events Manager, Michelle Porter!

RETAILER NEWS

The Home Depot is hosting an online promotion leading up to the holiday season that targets the retailer’s home décor and accessories products. “Décor Days” is an online-only sales event which offers its “biggest style savings of the year.” It runs from Oct. 5 to Oct. 9 and will feature deals on some 10,000 décor products, including national brands as well as its private brands like Home Decorators Collection, StyleWell, and The Company Store.

RONA inc. has received a Special Recognition Energy Star Canada Award, the fourth Energy Star distinction conferred on the organization. The award recognizes RONA’s participation in the Canadian Greener Homes Grant, staff training on eco-friendly product knowledge, and increased visibility and promotion of Energy Star-certified offerings, among other initiatives.

Home Hardware Stores Ltd. and its dealer-owners once again joined Tree Canada this year to mark National Tree Day and engage in nationwide community tree-planting events. Twenty-four Home stores across nine provinces planted trees to mark National Forest Week.

Amazon says it’s expanding its logistics network to allow selling partners to ship products from its storage service to outside warehouses and bricks-and-mortar stores. The new service, dubbed Multi-Channel Distribution, leverages the e-retail giant’s existing Amazon Warehousing Distribution, which previously allowed only for shipping directly to the consumer. It’s part of a strategy by Amazon to tackle end-to-end fulfilment, including customs clearance and ground transportation.

At Costco Wholesale Corp., net sales for the fourth quarter were $77.43 billion, an increase of 9.4 percent from $70.76 billion. Net sales for the fiscal year, which includes a 53rd week, reached $237.71 billion, up 6.7 percent from $222.73 billion. In Canada, where Costco has 107 stores, comp sales were up 8.1 percent. But not including the increase in gas prices and the impact of foreign currency exchange, the comp increase was a more modest 1.7 percent.

Registration is open for the Western Retail Lumber Association’s 30th Anniversary Building and Hardware Showcase. The show returns in January to Winnipeg’s RBC Convention Centre for an event that includes learning, networking, and presentations by top manufacturers, distributors, and service providers. The show will kick off with a new feature: a day-long series of business workshops. (Click here to register.)

Quebec will not follow the federal government in waiving taxes on building materials for rental housing, Premier François Legault said last week. “We are looking at several [other] scenarios to help tenants,” said the premier. “We don’t think it would be the most effective measure in the short term.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this month that GST on materials for the construction of new rental buildings would be eliminated, reviving a shelved 2015 campaign promise.

West Fraser Timber has reached an agreement to sell its Quesnel, B.C., and Slave Lake, Alta., pulp mills to Atlas Holdings. The deal, valued at $120 million, includes related woodlands operations and timber holdings in Alberta and a long-term fibre supply agreement for the Quesnel facility.

Retail sales increased by 0.3 percent to $66.1 billion in July. Sales increased in seven of the nine subsectors and were led by a 1.3 percent hike at food and beverage retailers. LBM and garden sales rose by 0.9 percent for the month. (StatCan) 

The Hardlines Market Share Report is now available for purchase. This important proprietary research is not available anywhere else. It features 80 slides in handy PowerPoint format. As a Premium Member-Subscriber, you save more than 20 percent on your order. And save more than 30 percent when you buy the Market Share Report bundled with its companion research, the Hardlines Retail Report. (Click here to order your Reports today!)

Private brands are key at latest Home Hardware dealer market

A walk through the latest in-person dealer market held by Home Hardware Stores Ltd. revealed lots of new products, along with a plethora of services for the dealers. Called “Homecoming,” the market was held for the second consecutive year at the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place in Toronto.

On the product front, categories that are seeing continued strength included outdoor living. The company’s range of patio furniture and décor was front and centre at the market. Home offers a “Basics” program, which provides entry price points for its products, and in the case of outdoor furniture that meant patio chairs starting at $29. At the high end of the category, natural colours and muted tones dominated. Wooden outdoor tables with the natural look of “living edge” finishes were complemented by other finishes in red, blue, beige, and grey.

Moving into the paint department, Home was showcasing an extended line of spray paints under its BeautiTone brand. The number of available colours has doubled from 12 to 24—including some nods to the latest pop culture trends like Barbie pink.

That pink was also found in the bath category, with—wait for it—pink tubs. Other colours featured in fashion plumbing included gold, which remains a popular choice, along with black, which a Home Hardware spokesperson said is now the number-one colour for faucets. In fact, one bath vanity set mixed black and gold together.

An overriding trend throughout the products was the focus on private labels. In addition to legacy brands such as Benchmark (including a battery-powered riding lawnmower featured at the market), Home Hardware has been investing in other labels, which reflect, along with the pro focus, a parallel push on home products. InStyle comprises everything from wine glasses and mirrors to towels, shower curtains, vases, and even flooring.

“Home has focused on our private-label brands to deliver trusted products to Canadian consumers in various categories like paint, tools, home décor, and more,” said Marianne Thompson, Home Hardware’s chief commercial officer. She added that the private brands are an important way for Home Hardware dealers to bring innovation and value to their customers.

Another important Home Hardware brand is Mosaic, a mid-range line that replaces Kuradori and is expanding this year into small appliances such as microwaves and toasters. The KitchenAid brand remains the retailer’s high-end brand.

The beefed-up housewares and kitchenwares offerings are designed to make Home Hardware stores a destination for these categories.

“We are thrilled to expand the Mosaic brand into the small appliances category, as it completes our kitchen story to the customer,” said Kristen Fromm, Home’s merchandise manager for housewares and small appliances. “From cookware and bakeware to gadgets and small appliances, the Mosaic brand encourages customers to define their kitchen space with a range of products they can trust to prepare meals of any size for any occasion.”

Castle keeps growing with the addition of new members Canada-wide

Dealers continue to move between banners, and one group that’s managed to pick up new members from right across the country in recent months is Castle Building Centres Group.

Castle, which currently boasts more than 325 members nationwide, has been adding stores that are both traditional building centres and more specialized dealers that can fit the diverse profile that Castle represents.

“Changes in ownership and corporate direction are being questioned by more and more independents. We are experiencing this every day,” says Ken Jenkins, the group’s president and CEO. He points out Castle’s focus on each dealer’s own brand as taking precedence for the group.

“We have a compelling story that focuses entirely on the success of the entrepreneur. At the same time, making the right choice of buying groups is also essential. Our ability to exhibit that an independent’s cost of affiliation to a buying group is as important as their cost of goods is opening their eyes to an increasing number of opportunities at Castle.”

Those opportunities include Commercial Building Supplies (CBS), the group’s division that caters specifically to commercial members. The latest dealer to fit that category is located in Alberta’s capital city. Edmonton Roof Truss includes a truss manufacturing facility and a wide range of engineered wood products. Owners Don Clement and Nicole Caney-Clement bought an existing truss facility that had been established over 40 years ago.

Moving farther west, Island Home & Garden in Gabriola, B.C., is returning to the group after stints with other banners. The business was founded just under a decade ago by Nick and Robin Hock. The Hocks have a second location in the pipeline in Cumberland, B.C., which they expect to open in the fall.

Most recently, Castle signed Maada’oozhgamig Castle Building Centre in Nipigon, Ont., a First Nation-owned home improvement dealer. Owners Shawn Sobush and The Grossi Group purchased an existing retail store and switched it to Castle.

There’s also a brand-new store in Woodstock, Ont.—although the business joined Castle (then known as BOLD) in 1964. Husband-and-wife owners Jamie Adams and Tasha Birtch (shown here) held a grand opening for Adams Building Supply earlier this month. The 10,000-square-foot store represents a renaming and a new location for Adams’ and Birtch’s Allen Building Centre, which has been operating for 60 years. The new location features a four-acre lumberyard and a double-drive-through covered pickup area for contractors. The owners have a sister store in nearby Shakespeare, Ont.

“We are well positioned for both the growth of new members to Castle and the incredible organic growth of our current base,” Jenkins says. “Business is good at Castle!”

What are the top banners in Canada? Find out in new Market Share Report

Did you know that three retail groups, Home Hardware, RONA, and Canadian Tire, all share about the same volume of sales in British Columbia? But another retailer has almost twice as much of the market in that province than each of these three.

Across the country in Nova Scotia, Home Hardware is the market leader, owning almost one-third of the market for retail home improvement sales in that province. Kent is firmly in second place.

These are just some of the valuable facts you’ll find in the latest edition of the Hardlines 2023 Market Share Report, which is available now—and exclusive to Hardlines. This report details total sales by store format and individual banner in every province and territory. The store counts, sales volumes, and market shares of every key banner are listed by province and territory.

The Hardlines 2023 Market Share Report identifies each national retail banner, including Home Hardware, RONA, Home Depot, and Ace Hardware, plus the buying groups like AD Canada, Castle, TIMBER MART, and Sexton Group.

But this important research also measures the sales and market shares of the regional players, such as Canac in Quebec, Windsor Plywood in British Columbia, McMunn & Yates in Manitoba, and Fries Tallman Lumber in Saskatchewan.

The Hardlines 2023 Market Share Report features 80 slides in handy PowerPoint format. As a Premium Member-Subscriber, you save more than 20 percent on your order. And save more than 30 percent when you buy the Market Share Report bundled with its companion research, the Hardlines Retail Report. (Click here to order your Reports today!)

RONA inc. is continuing with its plan to convert its Lowe’s stores to the RONA+ banner. Another nine locations were announced most recently, marking the first conversions outside of Ontario.

The stores are in British Columbia (Vancouver Grandview, Nanaimo, Victoria Langford, Victoria Tillicum, Abbotsford), Saskatchewan (Regina South, Saskatoon West), and Manitoba (Winnipeg East, Winnipeg South). The stores will remain open during the conversions.

The first 25 conversions of Lowe’s stores to the new banner took place starting in late July in Ontario, where new RONA+ banners went up at Lowe’s stores in southern and southwestern Ontario. The first 10 Lowe’s stores to be converted are located in Ancaster, Brantford, Cambridge, Hamilton, Kitchener, Niagara Falls (shown here), Sarnia, Waterloo, and the two stores in Windsor. They were soon followed by another round of switches, in Barrie, Belleville, East Gwillimbury, Kanata, Kingston, London North West, London South West, Maple, Nepean, Orleans, Oshawa, Ottawa Gloucester, Pickering, Sudbury, and Whitby.

RONA inc. developed its RONA+ banner after Lowe’s Cos. sold its Canadian banners to Sycamore Partners, a New York City-based private equity firm, earlier this year. Among the stores acquired were 61 Lowe’s stores in this country. Those will eventually be converted to RONA+, except for at least one that has been closed instead, in Vaughan, Ont. RONA has now identified the conversions of just over half its Lowe’s outlets.

As the Lowe’s stores are converted, Lowe’s products will continue to be available—and gift cards and warranties will continue to be honoured—in the new-look RONA+ stores.

In addition to the Vaughan location, two RONA big box stores in Ontario were slated for closure. One is located in Belleville and the other in London. The retail and pro activities at those stores will be consolidated into other nearby RONA stores in each of those markets.

(Get the latest on RONA’s plans for its new format stores, plus its relationship with its affiliate dealers, at the 27th annual Hardlines Conference, Oct. 17 and 18 in Whistler, B.C., in partnership with the BSIA of B.C. None other than Jean-Sébastien Lamoureaux, SVP, RONA affiliates, wholesale, and public affairs, will be our keynote speaker at this event!)

At W.W. Grainger, Matt Fortin has been promoted to SVP and chief human resources officer. Fortin joined Grainger in 2006 and most recently served as the group VP for merchandising and supplier management. His tenure with the firm also includes time leading its sourcing and commercial operations in China. Prior to joining Grainger, he spent 16 years at General Motors.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the Hardlines Conference is just three weeks away? It takes place in Whistler, B.C., on Oct. 17 and 18. Delegates include the leading dealers on the west coast, representatives from Taiga, Johns Manville, RONA, Home Hardware, Home Depot, Castle, Sexton Group, Federated Co-op, and more. As a Hardlines Premium Member-Subscriber, you get a 20 percent discount on your conference registration. Got a question? Contact our amazing Marketing & Events Manager, Michelle Porter!

RETAILER NEWS

TIMBER MART’s charitable foundation, Timberkids, raised a record-breaking $38,000 during its annual Quebec golf tournament and silent auction on Aug. 29 at the Thetford Golf Club in Thetford Mines, Que. Over 110 guests attended the 12th annual edition of the event from across the province, including nearly 40 TIMBER MART dealers and some 25 vendors. The event is one of three held each summer, in addition to golf tournaments in Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

IKEA Canada has opened a distribution centre in Beauharnois, Que., weighing in at just over one million square feet. It replaces a 925,696-square-foot facility in Brossard, on the south shore of Montreal. The dual-purpose warehouse both ships to stores and fulfils e-commerce orders directly to customers. Automation features include a storage and retrieval system and an interface that detects the right size of box for an order.

Home Hardware last week named its Walter J. Hachborn Store of the Year. The award went to Wilson’s Home Hardware Building Centre in Barrington Passage, N.S., and was presented during Home Hardware’s Homecoming buying show in Toronto. The store’s dealer-owner, Mike Wilson, represents the fourth generation of his family to run the business.

Giant Tiger Stores held the grand opening of a new store last week in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. The 20,000-square-foot location, on the west side of the city, is the discount mass merchant retailer’s second location in the Soo.

Wolseley Canada will hold the grand opening of its newest location in Toronto on Sept. 26. The store, located on Bermondsey Rd. in East York, is a 29,000-square-foot facility offering a full range of Wolseley Canada’s plumbing and HVAC products. Wolseley Canada now has more than 220 locations across the country.

Sales of existing Canadian homes were down 4.1 percent in August compared to the previous month. National sales were dragged down by declines in markets including Greater Vancouver, Montreal, and Hamilton-Burlington. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) number of transactions came in 5.3 percent above August 2022. (Canadian Real Estate Assoc.)

The annualized pace of housing starts in Canada fell by 1.0 percent in August to 252,787 units, from 255,232 units in July. The rate of urban starts declined by the same percentage, with 233,075 units recorded in August. (CMHC)

Investment in building construction declined 2.6 percent to $17.5 billion in July. Residential construction spending was down 4.1 percent to $11.5 billion. Single-family home construction investment declined 5.5 percent to $5.8 billion, the lowest level since August 2020, with Ontario accounting for most of the fall. (StatCan)

Canada’s Big Six banks have indicated their openness to the possibility of refinancing loans made to small businesses under the Canada Emergency Business Account. Under a revised timeline issued by the federal government, loans repaid by Jan. 18 of next year will be partially forgiven in the amount of either $10,000 or $20,000. Ottawa announced last week that beyond that, businesses can still qualify for partial forgiveness if they reach a refinancing deal with their banks by March 28, 2024.

“We’re very pleased with the turnout at this year’s tournament and humbled by the generosity of our dealer and vendor communities. Timberkids exists to support the health and wellbeing of Canadian children and the funds that were raised at this year’s tournament will go towards improving many children’s lives in the communities where our dealers do business.”
—Jon Irwin, TIMBER MART’s vice-president of member services, on the success of the buying group’s recent charity golf tournaments on behalf of children’s initiatives.

2023 Hardlines Conference: work and fun combined, but we’re filling up fast

Join us for two days of information, trends, and networking at the 2023 Hardlines Conference on Oct. 17 and 18. This year, we take the show on the road to the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, located at the base of Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, B.C.

But: we are already signing up a great group of delegates, which means that hotel rooms for the Hardlines Conference are 80 percent booked up. The cut-off date for our special room rates starting at $309 is Sept. 21. (Please book your room directly by phone at 1-800-441-1414 or online here. Cite the Hardlines Conference or use group code 1023HARD_001 for the special rate.)

In Whistler, you’ll have access to some great networking events. On Oct. 16, the evening before the conference starts officially, delegates can gather for the RONA Pub Night at Merlin’s Bar and Grill. It’s guaranteed to be a great way to catch up with colleagues and customers in a relaxed setting. Then, on Oct. 17, at the end of day one of the conference, Home Hardware will host its annual cocktail reception, which precedes the gala dinner to honour the winners of this year’s Outstanding Retailer Awards. All the major banners are signed up for gala dinner, so don’t miss out!

Our host hotel, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, is a world-class resort. It’s famous for its luxurious spa and health club, which offers full access to indoor and outdoor pools, hot tubs, eucalyptus steam rooms, and fitness facilities.

We want you to make the most out of your time at the conference, and there are endless autumn activities in Whistler. Cozy up by an evening bonfire, breathe in the crisp alpine air on a scenic hike, or indulge in locally inspired seasonal cuisine. There’s yoga, historic walks, wine tours, and tons of nature to enjoy. You can get a full list of the many activities available—besides the Hardlines Conference—by clicking here.

The 27th annual Hardlines Conference (oh yeah, we’ve been doing this for a long time!) takes place Oct. 17 and 18 in Whistler, B.C. Take advantage of a 20 percent discount on your conference registration!

New product trends at Home Hardware’s latest dealer show, again in Toronto

Home Hardware Stores Ltd. held its dealer market in Toronto last week, for the second year in a row. This year’s market, called Homecoming, again drew dealers from across the country to see new products, merchandising ideas, and services.

On an exclusive tour of the show floor before the market opened, led by Home Hardware’s assistant manager of public relations, Alysha Kearney (shown here, centre), Hardlines got a preview of the products and trends being presented.

For decades, the show was held right in Home Hardware’s distribution centre and was part of the fabric of the town of St. Jacobs, Ont., where Home Hardware has its head office facilities. The Kitchener-Waterloo region would fill up with thousands of people: dealers, their families and staff, as well as vendors, twice a year for decades.

During Covid, Home Hardware moved to a virtual show, a typical strategy for much of the world during that time. Then, last year, the retailer returned to an in-person event, relocated it to the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place in Toronto, and reduced the frequency to once a year.

The move was due to a range of factors, including the need for more space and the heightened level of technological sophistication of the DC’s updated order-picking system, which would be disrupted by mounting the event on the warehouse floor.

As in the past, one of the first categories dealers face walking into the main hall of the Enercare Centre is the outdoor living products. Home Hardware is investing big in new models and styles of patio furniture and outdoor living amenities. That includes the company’s “Basics” program of affordable products, which includes patio chairs and tables. Outdoor power equipment is relying on more battery power—including a riding lawn mower this year—and quieter performance.

The market serves as a platform for Home’s launch of its paint brand’s colour of the year and this event was no exception. BeautiTone’s “Illumina” has been recognized this year. It’s “a soft yellow with notes of red, a nostalgic pop of cheerful colour,” according to a release. Even the name, which is derived from the Latin word for “illuminate,” aims to address the colour’s ability to lighten up a space.

(We’ll have more to report on the Home Hardware Homecoming market in next week’s eye-popping edition of Hardlines Weekly Report.—Editor)

Home Depot’s ESG report leads way as retailers double down on ethical concerns

For many businesses, maximizing returns for shareholders is no longer enough. Corporate social responsibility, or environmental, social, and governance (ESG), reports are increasingly claiming prominence alongside quarterly results. Younger consumers in particular are interested in investing in—and working for—brands that prioritize the ethical impact of their business.

A study by market research firm First Insight found that Gen Z consumers (those born since the mid-’90s) take ecological factors seriously into account, to the point that almost three-quarters will choose to pay more for a sustainably produced product. Meanwhile, Nielsen has found that three-quarters of millennials will adjust their buying habits in relation to ecological concerns.

It’s not surprising, then, that many companies are complementing their financial updates with ESG reports. Take Home Depot. This summer, the retailer published its annual ESG report outlining progress on various environmental and socially aware pillars, ranging from production and supply to packaging and sourcing. In 2022, the company says, it reduced its carbon emissions by some 92,000 metric tons—equivalent to taking more than 20,000 cars off the road for a year.

In the “goals in progress” section, the report stated that all private-brand fibre packaging for new products will be compostable, recyclable, or contain recycled content by 2027. By the end of fiscal 2028, more than 85 percent of U.S. and Canadian sales in outdoor power equipment will run on rechargeable battery technology instead of gas.

A spokesperson for Home Depot Canada told Hardlines that “sustainability is a driving force behind the success of our business.”

RONA inc. and predecessor Lowe’s Canada, for their part, have made battery recycling efforts an anchor of their commitment to greening the economy. Home Hardware introduced the first two electric vehicles to its truck fleet in the spring. Manufacturers like Stanley Black & Decker are providing updates on their corporate responsibility efforts too.

Another front where companies are seeking to act responsibly is Indigenous relations. IKEA Canada has been particularly active in this area. It launched its first Indigenous-designed showroom in Edmonton in 2020; another opened in Calgary early this year. Last year, all IKEA Canada stores hosted art installations created by The Canadian Library in honour of missing and murdered Indigenous women and children.

Hudson’s Bay Co. announced last fall that it would direct gross profits from its iconic wool point blankets to a new fund for Indigenous initiatives.

As new generations of consumers come of age, ethical, environmental, and diversity concerns will only grow in prominence. Savvy retailers will need to be prepared to market to a conscientious clientele.

RONA inc. is celebrating the third anniversary of its VIPpro program this month. As loyalty programs and rewards platforms become a hot strategic tool for retailers, RONA has held on to, and invested in, this program that is aimed at its contractor and builder customers.

Through Sept. 20, RONA is hosting a series of events at most of its stores, which include promotional events, contests, and workshops.

Launched on September 10, 2020, at the time by Lowe’s Canada, the program was unique to the Canadian operations and was implemented in all Lowe’s, RONA, and Réno-Dépôt corporate stores. The VIPpro app was developed by Toronto-based Kinetic Commerce. The program provides discounts and bulk buying for contractors, as well as business supports and digital interaction with RONA stores, all through a dedicated app. Users can view their purchasing data, special offers, and profile information on their mobile device, in addition to their complete purchasing history.

At the stores, contractors have dedicated entrances and parking, early opening hours, and priority curbside pickup available from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Services to contractors through VIPpro are constantly being enhanced with new initiatives. For example, a VIPpro application and an in-store IT platform generating instant quotes for appliances have been developed.

The Canadian Home Products Trade Association has announced its 2023 Industry Hall of Fame inductees. They are Peter Stojanov, retired owner and president of Onward Sales & Marketing, Burlington, Ont.; Al Tulloch, retired owner and president of McDonald Sales, Milton, Ont.; Harry Jacobs, vice-president of sales and marketing, Ideal Security, LaSalle, Que; and Richard Lépine, retired partner and vice-president, LM2 Marketing, Laval, Que. Stojanov and Tulloch will be inducted at a CHPTA reception at Royal Woodbine Golf Club in Toronto on Nov. 2. Jacobs and Lépine will be inducted at an event at the DOCK619 event facility in Longueuil, Que., on Nov. 23.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the Hardlines Conference is just weeks away in Whistler, B.C.? Delegates already registered include some of the leading dealers on the west coast, plus representatives from major companies including Taiga, Peavey, Johns Manville, RONA, Home Hardware, Home Depot, BMR, GSW, Castle, Orgill, Sexton Group, Federated Co-op, and more. The conference takes place Oct. 17 and 18. Take advantage of a 20 percent discount on your conference registration!

RETAILER NEWS

Canadian Tire Corp. is introducing new retail destinations exclusively serving customers in the industrial sector. Called Mark’s WorkPro-L’Équipeur Pro, they will sell workwear for the pro market. Four stores are planned for this year: the first location opened last week in Edmonton, with further openings slated for Toronto, Montreal, and St. Catharines, Ont.

RONA inc. has announced it will convert nine more Lowe’s stores to the RONA+ banner. The stores are in British Columbia (Vancouver Grandview, Nanaimo, Victoria Langford, Victoria Tillicum, Abbotsford), Saskatchewan (Regina South, Saskatoon West), and Manitoba (Winnipeg East, Winnipeg South). The stores will remain open during the conversions.

Lee Valley Tools has completed another acquisition of one of its supplier manufacturers. This time, it has added Leigh Tools in Port Coquitlam, B.C., to its roster of specialty tool makers that have been brought in-house. This deal follows two other acquisitions we announced earlier this month: Hock Tools and The Beall Tool Co.

Clarington Home Hardware Building Centre recently celebrated its grand opening following a series of updates and renovations. The store, located in Bowmanville, Ont., east of Toronto, welcomed the local community with a ribbon cutting, special vendors, an ice cream truck, and giveaways.

Tractor Supply Co., the U.S., the farm and ranch hardware retailer (it calls itself a “rural lifestyle retailer”) held its annual week-long “Pet Appreciation Days” last week. It featured special deals on pet food, treats, toys and accessories, a nationwide adoption event, and a pet contest. On Saturday, the retailer hosted a central adoption event which welcomed local shelters and rescue groups. Customers who adopted a pet received a special gift bag including samples and coupons.

Montreal-based discount chain Dollarama reported second-quarter sales of $1.46 billion, up from $1.22 billion a year earlier. Same-store sales for the quarter surged by 15.5 percent. CEO Neil Rossy said the company expects the strong demand from inflation-weary shoppers “to persist through the second half of the year in the current macro-economic context.”

Jeld-Wen Holding has been named to Newsweek’s inaugural list of the World’s Most Trustworthy Companies 2023, making it the only window and door manufacturer on the list. The World’s Most Trustworthy Companies were identified through an independent survey based on a sample of more than 70,000 participants in 23 industries from 21 countries.

West Fraser Timber Co. has entered into an agreement to acquire Spray Lake Sawmills in Cochrane, Alta. The $140 million deal is expected to close later this year following completion of necessary regulatory reviews. Spray Lake Sawmills produces treated wood products, dimensional lumber, and a variety of wood residuals and bi-products. It has an annual lumber capacity of 155 million board feet.

Innovair Solutions has invested in Industrie Orkan inc., a manufacturer of air quality products based in Saint-Hubert, Que. The company manufactures Epurair brand products, which are sold in Canada and the U.S. Industrie Orkan will continue to operate under the leadership of brothers Daniel and Simon Labrecque. Headquartered in L’Islet, Que., Innovair Solutions is owned by the Beaulieu family.

The latest edition of Hardlines Dealer News is now available. In this issue, we look at what makes buyers tick, what the arrival of Scene+ at Home Hardware means to dealers, and the challenge of combatting theft. Hardlines Dealer News is monthly and it’s free: click here to subscribe now!

“Illumina is an inspiring choice for 2024 as Canadians embrace a sense of careful optimism for the future. With Illumina, Canadians can create a space that feels both engaging and relaxing, a combination created in part by introducing a hint of red into the yellow.”
—Kristen Gear, lead design and colour specialist for Home Hardware’s BeautiTone Paint and Home Products division, on the launch of the retailer’s colour of the year.

After more than a year of planning, Home Hardware Stores Ltd. has gone live with its rollout of its new loyalty program, Scene+. Customers can now collect points by using either a Scene+ card or a Scotiabank Scene+ Visa card.

“We are incredibly excited that Scene+ is now available at Home Hardware locations across the country,” said Kevin Macnab, president and CEO of Home Hardware Stores Ltd.

Canadians will earn 50 points for every $50 spent in a single in-store or online purchase at Home Hardware, when using their Scene + Loyalty card. And they will earn twice the points when paying with their Scotiabank Scene+ loyalty card. Every 1,000 Scene+ points can be redeemed for $10 off any purchase at Home Hardware stores or homehardware.ca.

Home Hardware joins a growing roster of retailers aligning themselves with Scene+, which started as a rewards program for Scotiabank customers to access free cinema tickets. Scene+ now boasts 13 million members across the country who access it through dozens of grocery stores, movie theatres, electronics stores, restaurants, play centres, pharmacies, banks, and travel companies.

Scene+ really took off at retail when grocery giant Empire Company Ltd. bought into Scene+ in June 2022. Soon after, it began rolling the program out to its stores, which include Sobeys, Safeway, Foodland, IGA, and FreshCo, as well as liquor stores in western Canada.

In an exclusive interview with Hardlines, Michael Gawtrey, director of marketing, loyalty and CRM, pro and consumer at Home Hardware Stores shared some background on the deal and how it came together.

“We’ve seen the stores respond in amazing fashion. We’ve seen our stores set up in-store displays, they’ve posted on their social network… We’ve really seen our stores embracing Scene+ and that’s exciting for us to see.”

Home Hardware recognizes the value of a good loyalty program for its contractor customers. Will Scene+ fit into that scenario? “We are definitely thinking about our contractors. They are a very important customer base for Home, as you know. So contractors are part of our future loyalty strategy. Some of that has not been brought to market yet,” Gawtrey says, adding that more details will be available in the future.

However, he points out that Home’s existing Top Notch program for contractors is still in place. “Stores do have the option to award Scene+ points to their contractors. And each dealer does make that decision independently.”

Scene+ promises big data for Home Hardware Stores—plus sector exclusivity

Customer data is a big part of retailer loyalty programs, which is why Home Hardware’s adoption of Scene+ is such big news. But will the new rewards program enable Home Hardware to learn more about what their customers want?

“Yes, loyalty programs do offer retailers the opportunity to leverage that data to better serve their customers,” said Home Hardware’s Michael Gawtrey (shown here). “Home Hardware, like other retailers, definitely has plans to be able to use that data to better serve our customers. Whether that’s service offerings, or product assortments, it gives us an understanding of how our customers shop and what they purchase. It’s important for us as a business.”

In addition to its wide usage in grocery stores, Scene + is particularly strong in restaurants, where its partners include Harvey’s, Swiss Chalet, East Side Mario’s, and Montana’s, among many others. In electronics, Scene+ has partnered with two powerhouses: Apple and Best Buy.

Other rewards programs have had the notoriety of being spread too thin. For example, TIMBER MART was an early adaptor of the Air Miles loyalty program and became its exclusive independent retail home improvement group in Canada. But Air Miles was also available in the Maritimes at Irving Oil gas stations. Irving’s own building supply division, Kent, eventually took on Air Miles as well, which cut into TIMBER MART’s segment exclusivity. In the early 1990s, RONA adopted the Air Miles program, but dropped it early in 2021. (TIMBER MART dealers continue to offer Air Miles to their customers.)

However, says Gawtrey, Home Hardware has a hold on the retail home improvement channel for its new points program. “Yes, we are the exclusive home improvement partner of Scene+. So you won’t see a situation where there is ‘co-exclusivity’—as Air Miles called it.”

Retail leaders by region are mapped out in our new Market Share Report

Did you know that Quebec is the province with the most building centres in Canada? Or that Ontario has more hardware stores than Quebec and Alberta combined? Or that Prince Edward Island, despite its small size, has two home improvement big boxes—a Kent and a Home Depot?

These are just some of the facts that are revealed in the latest edition of the Hardlines Market Share Report, which is available now—and exclusive to Hardlines. This report details total sales by store format and individual banner in every province and territory. The store counts and sales volumes, and market shares of every key banner, are listed by province.

For example, TIMBER MART has an estimated 100 stores in British Columbia that represent slightly more than 10 percent of the market in that province by sales volume. It’s close behind Home Hardware, which accounts for more than 12 percent of the market through 108 stores there.

On the other side of the country, Kent is a familiar banner—and competitor—throughout the Maritimes. But despite its home-town advantage, it only holds second place for market share by sales in New Brunswick.

The Hardlines Market Share Report identifies each national retail banner, including RONA, Home Depot, Home Hardware, and Ace Hardware, plus the buying groups like Castle, TIMBER MART, Sexton Group, and Delroc.

But this important research also measures the sales and market shares of the regional players, such as Canac in Quebec, Windsor Plywood in British Columbia, McMunn & Yates in Manitoba, and Fries Tallman Lumber in Saskatchewan.

The Hardlines Market Share Report is now available for purchase. This important research features more than 80 slides in handy PowerPoint format. As a Premium Member-Subscriber, you save more than 20 percent on your order. And save more than 30 percent when you buy the Market Share Report bundled with its companion research, the Hardlines Retail Report. (Click here to order your Reports today!)

With its roots as a mail-order catalogue company since its inception 45 years ago, Lee Valley Tools has traditionally had a strong remote-order capacity. Now, the company is launching a new automatic picking system at its distribution facility in Ottawa.

The system goes live today. It is operational and being tested this week and by Sept. 18 the actual go-live system will be processing orders.

CEO Robin Lee says the new system has been in the works since Covid when Lee Valley recognized the critical importance of online sales. The system uses 42 automated shuttles to speed up order picking and sorting. But Lee sees it as much more than a cost-saving process. With the need for fewer people on the line, “that will let us raise wages for remaining staff and insulate us against the vagaries of casual labour.”

He notes that the ability to focus on higher wages will help Lee Valley maintain its competitive edge. “It allows people to focus on what they do best.”

While the new system will enhance Lee Valley’s ability to fulfill customer orders, the company is not completely insulated from the realities of the bricks-and-mortar marketplace. Its store in Saskatoon has been forced to close, the result of an eviction by a landlord that gave the company just two months to move out. “We closed that one two months ago and scrambled to find a new location,” Lee says.

A new store is being developed in the Lawson Heights Mall in Saskatoon. In the meantime, a pop-up store has been installed in the mall, until the actual store is up and running.

Paul Crawford is changing his role after 25 years as president of his national manufacturers’ agency, King Marketing, and relocating the company’s head office. Crawford will become CEO and continue to provide strategic direction, oversee key initiatives, and cultivate important industry relationships. Mark Travers, who has been King’s general manager for the past 10 years, is taking over as president. He will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company, executing strategic plans, and leading the company’s growth. Also at King Marketing, Stephanie Kainz has been promoted to vice president of sales. She brings over 17 years of experience in the company and will lead the sales team. Over the next few months, the company will transition its head office from Richmond, B.C., to its existing Mississauga, Ont., offices and warehouse.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the Hardlines Conference is only weeks away? It takes place Oct. 17 and 18, 2023, at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler Resort in Whistler, B.C. The two-day program includes senior execs from Federated Co-op, RONA, and Groupe Gagnon, plus tech and data experts—and amazing networking! As a Premium Member who receives this newsletter every Monday, you can take advantage of a 20 percent discount on your conference registration. And we have special pricing for dealers. (Contact Michelle Porter at the Hardlines World Headquarters for those details!)

RETAILER NEWS

BMR Group has signed a Quebec home improvement retailer, Groupe Anctil, as its newest member. Founded by Joseph Anctil in 1935, the family business began with a general store and today is a major player in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, with stores in St-Denis-de-Brompton and Magog. The company also has a prefabricated wood-structure manufacturing plant in Magog and a water treatment company in Granby.

Montreal-based Stingray, a provider of in-store music and video content, has added Peavey Mart to its network. Up to now a provider of in-store content to pharmacies and groceries, Stingray said in a release that the addition of Peavey Mart expands its reach “to over 90 hardware store locations across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Nova Scotia.”

A Castle dealer in Woodstock, Ont., celebrated the grand opening of its new store over the past weekend. The 10,000-square-foot store, with 4-acre lumberyard and double drive-through pick-up areas, is called Adams Building Supply. It’s really a relocation—and renaming—of the owners’ Allen Building Centre, in downtown Woodstock, to a new industrial and retail area a short drive away. Owners are Jamie Adams and Tasha Birtch, whose family has owned the business since 1963. They also own a building supply store in Shakespeare, Ont.

Also at Castle, Island Home & Garden in Gabriola, B.C., is returning to the group after stints with other banners. The business was founded just under a decade ago by Nick and Robin Hock. The Hocks have a second location in the pipeline in Cumberland, B.C., which they expect to open in the fall.

In anticipation of the pending Christmas holiday season, Hudson’s Bay will add Zellers in all its stores across the country on Sept. 22. Currently, there are 24 store-within-a-store format Zellers locations—with one more on the way at Bramalea City Centre on Sept. 27. Zellers also appears in pop-up form at 22 other locations. These sites, which were opened earlier this year, range in size from 1,000 to 2,800 square feet. With the installation of the latest pop ups, a total of 78 Hudson’s Bay stores in Canada will offer a Zellers location.

Gypsum Management & Supply reported that net earnings for the first quarter of its 2024 fiscal year declined by 3.0 percent to $86.8 million, compared to $89.5 million a year earlier. Net sales grew by 3.7 percent to $1.4 billion from $1.36 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2023.

For the first 52 weeks of its 53-week fiscal year ended August 27, Costco reported net sales of $232.95 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent from $222.70 billion during the similar period last year. Comp sales for its U.S. stores were up 3.3 percent while Canadian locations were up 1.8 percent. However, excluding the impacts from gasoline prices and foreign exchange, U.S. comps were up 4.2 percent and Canadian comps were up 8.0 percent. Costco has 861 stores, including 107 in Canada.

Ottawa is expanding its efforts to counter U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber. According to international trade minister Mary Ng, the government is challenging the tariffs both under the USMCA trade agreement’s dispute process and before the U.S. Court of International Trade. U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai says negotiations would be contingent on Canada’s abandonment of the stumpage fee system at the heart of the dispute.

The Canadian economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.2 percent in the second quarter, following growth in the first quarter of the year 2.6 percent. (StatCan)

New construction was off 8.2 percent in the second quarter, year-over-year. Renovation spending fell 4.3 percent in the quarter, compared to the same period last year. (StatCan)

Quebec, formerly alone among provinces for having no minimum age for the employment of children, has tightened up its child labour statutes. The province’s Bill 19, in effect since June 1, prohibits the  employment of workers under the age of 14, except in certain cases. Those exemptions include babysitting, newspaper delivery, and work in summer camps, among other types of work by children. It also exempts many of Quebec’s family-run home improvement stores—but only the smaller ones. “Work performed [by a child] in a family enterprise with fewer than 10 employees, when the child is a child of the employer,” is exempted, Bill 19 states.

“You have to evolve. If you don’t, Darwin’s theory kicks in and you’ll die out.” That’s the warning from Romain Mercier, a customer engagement and communication expert with 20 years of sales experience, including 10 years in advertisement and marketing technology sales. “What incremental progress do dealers have, to make growth out of online sales?”

A true digital guru, Mercier will share his insights at this year’s Hardlines Conference with a presentation titled, “The Evolution of Digital Commerce.” And he won’t be alone: the 27th annual conference will feature some of the brightest minds in retail today. They’ll share their stories and insights at the conference’s new location in Whistler, B.C., on Oct. 17 and 18.

We are also proud to present David Ian Gray, of DIG360 Consulting Ltd., a highly respected Canadian retail advisory company headquartered in Vancouver. He is also co-founder and co-host of @TheBusinessOfRetail podcast. Gray is a brilliant big-picture thinker and will talk about some of the top issues facing dealers today: retail staff retention and recruitment, the digital divide, and where Canada’s retail is headed.

Two senior retail home improvement executives will also take to the podium this year.

Cody Smith is director of Home and Building Solutions (HABS), the hardware and LBM division of Federated Co-operatives Ltd. As director of the HABS unit, Smith leads a team that provides strategic partnership and services to over 90 Co-op Home Centres across western Canada. These stores collectively represent more than half a billion dollars in retail sales, making FCL one of the retail giants of western Canada.

Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux is RONA inc.’s senior vice-president, RONA affiliates, wholesale, and public affairs. His presence will be very timely, given all the changes taking place at RONA. Lamoureux will provide valuable insights into the direction of the company, the relationship with its affiliate dealers, and the launch of the RONA+ banner, which is replacing the Lowe’s name in Canada.

The Hardlines Conference is being held in partnership with the Building Supply Industry Association of British Columbia, which is marking its 85th anniversary. The BSIA will host a table-top trade show concurrent with the conference to showcase its supplier members’ products and services. (For information on how to participate as an exhibitor, contact BSIA president Thomas Foreman.)

(The 27th Annual Hardlines Conference will be held at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler resort Oct. 17 and 18, 2023. As a Faithful Hardlines Weekly Report Member-Subscriber, you can use the code HARDLINES23 to get 20 percent off registration! Register here today!)

RONA closes two more stores as it winds down the Lowe’s banner

With Lowe’s departure from Canada and new ownership for RONA inc., that retailer is carefully evaluating its store inventory at its 61 Lowe’s-bannered locations (many of which have been already switched to a new banner: RONA+, see below).

The takeover of RONA/Lowe’s/Réno-Dépôt by new owners, Sycamore Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, has provided new leadership, and returned the company to privately-held status. But more changes were inevitable, including the likelihood that some Lowe’s and RONA stores would be re-evaluated in certain overlapping markets.

RONA has started that evaluation with Ontario. Some 25 Lowe’s locations in that province have been scheduled to switch. But the Lowe’s in Vaughan, Ont., just north of Toronto, is scheduled to close altogether some time over the next month or so.

Now, Hardlines has learned that two Ontario stores under the RONA banner are slated for the same fate. They are RONA Belleville, at 260 Bell Blvd., and the RONA Home & Garden in London, at 820 Blythwood Rd. Both markets have other RONA-owned stores. The Lowe’s in Belleville will be rebranded RONA+ in the coming weeks, while London has two Lowe’s stores that will likewise get renamed RONA+ in the near future. RONA plans to consolidate its retail and contractor business into those stores.

“To improve our impact on the market and be better aligned with customers’ needs, we conducted an in-depth analysis of our network in the Belleville and London areas, and decided to reduce our store footprint in areas where some locations were in close proximity to one another,” a spokesperson from RONA told Hardlines.

“We will be consolidating our retail and pro activities at selected stores in these areas, where the teams will keep serving local homeowners and professionals with renewed passion and dedication,” RONA told us. Liquidation sales began in Belleville on Aug. 24 and at the London stores Aug. 31.

The company added that it will make every effort to relocate employees at surrounding stores where possible, “and all impacted employees will be treated fairly and receive support from the management and HR teams.”

Celebrating 45 years, Lee Valley is still growing—and still having fun

Since its inception in 1978, Lee Valley Tools remains a family business. The company has 18 specialty hardware, tool, garden, and specialty products stores across Canada. And building on its pre-internet roots as a mail-order catalogue seller, it maintains a considerable online presence as well.

The company’s founders, Leonard Lee and his wife Lorraine, launched Lee Valley out of Leonard’s love of hand tools and woodworking. A civil servant before he launched the company, Lee was a brilliant promoter. He told the audience at a Hardlines Conference many years ago that the famous, and somewhat romantic, company name was something he made up because, well, it sounded cool.

Today, the company is led by the Lees’ son, Robin (pictured), as CEO, and president Jason Tasse, who’s been with Lee Valley for 25 years. (Robin took over as CEO in 2002; Leonard passed away in 2016). Coming through the pandemic, a lot has changed, says Robin. “We’ve all faced challenges coming through Covid and had to make a lot of changes to adapt. But we’ve also had a lot of time to consider what’s changed and how to grow.”

Lee Valley does a lot of its own product development and has its own manufacturing, under the Veritas name, right in Ottawa, where its head offices are located. In fact, the company makes 30 percent of the products it sells.

Robin has seen a lot of smaller hardware and tool manufacturers examine their businesses during the pandemic and decided they didn’t want to invest in the massive changes that technology and post-Covid shopping behaviours have demanded of businesses. “A lot of specialty operations are selling out to larger aggregators or just closing their doors,” Robin says. “So we’ve been busy acquiring some of these companies.”

The two latest acquisitions are Hock Tools and The Beall Tool Co., both family-owned and both long-time suppliers of their product lines to Lee Valley. The production of both these suppliers has been absorbed into the Lee Valley operations, “while protecting and preserving the proprietary products that these company had.”

Robin says two more deals are currently in the works, and adds, “We get offers every day.”

The 45th anniversary has provided a chance to have some fun, such as a line of clothing—fleece sweatshirts that are made in Canada and baseball caps assembled domestically. The company is also marking the anniversary by offering in-store workshops for $45 on subjects such as leatherworking and wood carving.

“The 45th is us practicing for our 50th,” Robin quips.

The Home Depot has launched an online portal to target millennials—generally defined as people born between 1981 and 1996 (currently 27 to 42 years old).

The company, referring to this age group as “the next generation of current and future first-time homeowners,” says its hub will provide “valuable resources including DIY guides, product recommendations, design inspiration, and more.”

However, the retailer is pinpointing one of the realities of the millennial generation, namely that they are not as confident doing repairs and renovations as older customers. A survey conducted by Home Depot revealed that more than eight out of 10 millennials and GenZers are interested in doing renovation, repair, design, and décor projects. However, only about 25 percent of them would feel “very confident” about taking on a home improvement project.

The survey further revealed that home ownership “is one of the most stressful milestones young people face today. Around half of millennials (53 percent) report worries about purchasing their first home, along with starting a family (57 percent) and career advancement (52 percent).”

Recognizing that this generation turns to YouTube for how-to advice, the retailer is offering its own alternative with the new hub. From moving checklists to project guides, and from virtual workshops to design inspiration, the online hub brings aims to deliver needed expertise directly to its customers.

Virtual workshops provide step-by-step guidance on projects like how to paint a room, replace light fixtures, and install a faucet. A catalogue of workshops teaches the fundamentals of caring for different areas of the home with both livestream and on-demand options.

Ray Ferris, CEO and president of West Fraser Timber, will retire on Dec. 31. Current COO Sean McLaren, a 35-year veteran of the company, will take the helm on Jan. 1, 2024. Ferris joined the company more than 25 years ago and was named president and COO in 2018, becoming CEO the following year.

Gabriel Farias has been named VP of OSB manufacturing at LP Building Solutions. He brings 25 years of experience in the manufacturing industry to the role, including time at Armstrong Flooring and Armstrong World Industries. Landon Stephens, LP’s new director of OSB sales and marketing, joined the business in 2015 as an OSB account manager. He was promoted to the role of regional sales manager before serving as senior national OSB sales manager.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the latest instalment of the Hardlines podcast series, What’s In Store, is now live? In this episode, we talk to Zaida Fazlic, VP of people, culture, and change management at Taiga Building Products. She shares her thoughts on the importance of delegating, the future of AI, and the value of recognizing employees’ differing skill sets. It’s the perfect chance to get to know Zaida before hearing her speak at this year’s Hardlines Conference in Whistler, B.C., this October! (You are registered, aren’t you?) And sign up now for free and get updates about our latest podcasts in your inbox!

RETAILER NEWS

Canac has begun work on its store in Sorel-Tracy, Que., some 75 kilometres from Montreal. Mayor Patrick Péloquin was in attendance as the symbolic first shovel dug into the ground. “The arrival of this major banner will allow us to enhance our offering in the renovation sector and offer competitive prices to our residents,” he said.

IKEA Canada held the grand opening of its new retail touch point in the Scarborough Town Centre in Scarborough, Ont. The 7,489-square-metre store carries 2,500 products in stock. The small-format store will have digital tools throughout, and a complete range of services including assembly, returns, home delivery, and a dedicated Planning Hub. Larger furniture items will be on display and can be ordered onsite for home delivery or pick up at various locations across the city.

Walmart has reported that its Q2 net income soared by about 33 percent to $7.89 billion, or $2.92 per share, from $5.15 billion ($1.88) a year ago. Total revenues of $161.63 billion beat analyst estimates of $160.27 billion. In Canada, net sales rose by 5.1 percent to $6.1 billion, with comp sales up 4.8 percent. Canadian e-commerce sales grew by four percent. The budget retailer has benefited from increased foot traffic as inflation-pinched shoppers look to stretch their dollars.

Lowe’s released its results for the second quarter that ended Aug. 4. Revenue for the quarter was $24.96 billion, down from $27.48 billion. Net income was $2.67 billion. Lowe’s had previously said it expects comparable store sales to drop by two to four percent this fiscal year, with the company’s revenues forecast to be $87 billion, a drop from $89 billion last year. It stuck by that forecast in its Q2 statements.

Ace Hardware, of Oak Brook, Ill., has opened 100 new stores in 2023—and has planned a further 70 by the end of the year. Globally, Ace has opened more than 1,100 stores in the past five years, the company said. There are more than 5,800 locally owned Ace hardware stores around the world. Peavey Industries owns the licence for the Ace banner in Canada, where it supplies more than 100 Ace stores.

Cloverdale Paint has made upgrades to its Surrey, B.C., manufacturing plant and established a distribution facility and warehouse in North Surrey. It’s invested in automated, high-speed paint processing which, says the company, more than doubles its decorative paint production capability. Cloverdale has also moved its finished goods DC and warehouse from Surrey to a new 60,000-square-foot high bay facility with a special area for handling high-performance industrial coatings.

Millwork manufacturer Metrie is planning a new manufacturing facility in Woodbridge, Ont. The mill is set to be fully operational by year-end and houses state-of-the-art technology that will enable Vancouver-based Metrie to improve production of pre-finished moulding and trim, says the company.

Some 500 customers, suppliers, employees, and guests gathered earlier this month at Goodfellow’s Delson, Que., headquarters to celebrate its 125th anniversary.

Cornerstone Building Brands of Cary, N.C., has acquired siding and roofing producer MAC Metal Architectural, of Saint-Hubert, Que. MAC Metal has some 100 employees. “The acquisition of MAC Metal Architectural expands our leading exteriors portfolio with value-added, residential-focused metal siding and roofing products that offer premium aesthetic design and durability solutions for our customers,” said Cornerstone president Rose Lee.

The annualized rate of housing starts fell 10 percent in July to 254,966 units. Despite the monthly drop, the total rate remained 7.4 percent above the five-year average. The rate of urban starts decreased by 11 percent, with 234,857 units recorded in July. The rate of rural starts was estimated at 20,109 units. (CMHC)

Investment in residential construction declined for the fourth straight month, falling 4.5 percent to $12.1 billion in June. Ontario accounted for most of the drop, declining by 5.8 percent to $5.1 billion. Single-family home construction fell 5.7 percent to $6.2 billion, with declines seen in eight provinces. Overall, construction spending fell 3.1 percent to $18.0 billion in June. (StatCan)

Global News Vancouver recently reported on “Project Barcode,” a police crackdown on chronic and violent shoplifters. A three-week operation by the Vancouver police, in February and March, resulted in more than 200 arrests. But the executive director of a Vancouver BIA told Global that his organization is disappointed by the results of the crackdown—including the response of the courts. Police laid 278 charges during Project Barcode. A total of 155 cases, or 56 percent, have been thrown out by the Crown.

We got an email at the World Headquarters last week asking which Lowe’s stores are closing in Canada. We hadn’t heard of any such closings—after all, retailers are not eager to share bad news with us. But our job is to get the facts and help our Faithful Readers, whether retailers or suppliers, to understand this industry better.

So we dug into it. A quick online search confirmed that the Lowe’s in Vaughan, Ont., will close. A call to the store gave us an approximate timeline: “one to two months.” Then we contacted the ever-helpful PR team at RONA inc. for further information and they committed to keep us in the loop. Once we had confirmed the facts, we ran the piece in our Daily News and picked it up here, in Hardlines Weekly Report (see under “Retailer News” in this issue).

This is typical of how the news is found, researched, and reported here at Hardlines. We have many publications now, so once we get the news, we have to decide which newsletter and which audience it is best suited for.

In another case, I made a call to the Home Building Centre in Osoyoos, on the British Columbia border adjacent to Washington state. I had been asked to tell the store manager about our 27th annual Hardlines Conference. It will be held in Whistler Oct. 17 and 18 and we want as many folks as possible on the West Coast to join us.

My conversation with that dealer soon revealed that his store operates in one of the hottest and driest climates in the country. Yeow! Another story possibility.

But as we worked to finalize the story, nature added a new twist. A wildfire crept up from Washington state and came perilously close to Osoyoos, forcing evacuations and alerts that kept the whole town, and the dealer, on alert. We put a call into the other Home Hardware dealer in town, a hardware store on the main street, for further input.

What started out as a courtesy phone call to a dealer became a real human interest story, then morphed into a breaking news item that could have resulted in tragedy. That story became a lead item in our sister publication, Hardlines Dealer News.

And yes, sometimes we share stories among the different titles. But we always try to add a new spin to the stories when we do. Take a recent story about making mental health awareness a part of any company’s health and safety policies.

Our editor, Steve Payne, had attended an HR conference held by the Retail Council of Canada. His coverage of one speaker on this topic was a perfect fit for the July edition of our Hardlines HR Advisor newsletter. But the message, we felt, warranted a wider audience. So we tweaked the story and included a version with additional info two weeks later in Hardlines Weekly Report.

(The news can come fast and furious to Hardlines, and we work hard to sift through the clutter to provide you with the best reading experience in all of our publications. Thanks for reading!—Michael McLarney)

Canadian Tire, Home Depot second-quarter results reflect a softening market

The latest quarterly results from two of North America’s largest hardlines retailers this month bear out the concern that 2023 has become a year of slowdown.

Canadian Tire Corp.’s second-quarter net earnings fell by 28.5 percent to $126.9 million, from $177.6 million a year earlier. Profits were hit by $74.6 million in costs associated with a fire in March at one of CTC’s Brampton, Ont., distribution centre, as well as by lower discretionary spending amid continued high inflation.

The Home Depot reported sales of $42.9 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2023. That number is down two percent from Q2 2022. Comparable sales for the quarter were likewise down two percent. Net earnings slipped as well, to $4.7 billion from $5.2 billion, a drop of about 10 percent.

Canadian Tire saw revenues for the retail segment, excluding petroleum, dip by 0.5 percent to $3.7 billion. However, one bright spot was comp sales at the company’s eponymous flagship banner: they edged up by 0.1 percent, as higher sales in automotive and living categories offset declines in gardening, seasonal, and hardware.

Home Depot reported that sales of smaller projects continued to grow during the second quarter, but there remained “continued pressure in certain big-ticket, discretionary categories.” The retailer reaffirmed its forecast of an overall sales dip of between two and five percent for fiscal 2023.

Lowe’s Cos., which will issue its second-quarter results tomorrow, had previously forecast that its comp sales for 2023 would be down from two to four percent.

Last year, Canadian Tire issued a long-range forecast for growth of about four percent per year through to 2025. But current conditions have the company setting that forecast aside.

“The cumulative effect of increasing inflationary pressure and higher interest rates on consumer spend and financing costs, along with higher inventory costs, has significantly impacted the company’s ability to deliver against its previous expectations,” says the Q2 results release from Canadian Tire. “Given the slower pacing of growth, and the noticeable slowdown in retail sales during the second quarter of 2023, the company is withdrawing its previously disclosed financial aspirations at this time.”

Wholesalers still face fallout from B.C. port strike, though LBM not as affected

The effects of the recent strike among British Columbia port workers are expected to have repercussions that will last for months to come. For manufacturers awaiting products from Asia, the impacts are vexing. For wholesalers, the port strike does not appear to be as big a concern. But it has certainly caused some hiccups for companies, especially the smaller players.

Russ Permann, CEO of Taiga Building Products, says the situation certainly caused some inconvenience, especially with architectural goods like mouldings, millwork, and flooring. “I suspect you’ll see more impacts in those small-pack items that go on store shelves, rather than large, bulky building materials that we mostly deal with.”

Nevertheless, Permann says, his company had a number of containers stacked up at the ports and more products sitting on ships offshore. “There were a few options to divert to other ports but not many, so we’re really at the mercy of those docks to clear up this backlog as quick as they can.”

Michel Walsh, director of product management and marketing at CanWel Building Materials, said the impact on CanWel has not been as dramatic as it has been for manufacturers. Walsh works out of CanWel’s Montreal-area offices, but the company is based in Vancouver and is a division of Doman Building Materials Group.

“Most containers we bought in the fourth quarter of 2022, we received them in Q1 to Q2. We diverted a few other ones around the world the other way, expecting the strike would last … As the strike is over, CN-CP’s backlog will take months to reabsorb.”

Permann observes that there weren’t too many acute shortages in the market as the strike came to an end, but he expects backlogs to take a few months to clear up. “A good estimate of returning to ‘normal’ supply flows is likely mid-fall. We don’t anticipate anything like what we saw during the pandemic. This will be more temporary in nature and much shorter in duration, if there is any disruption.”

Thomas Foreman, president of the Building Supply Industry Association of B.C., acknowledges that the delays will have a long-lasting effect on many of his organization’s supplier-members. “There are numerous ships and containers on hold and the delay will impact the freight that will arrive in the next months. A number of members have containers scheduled to arrive in August in preparation for the fall buying cycle and they’re uncertain on their ETA.”

The smaller companies will feel the brunt of the delays, he says. “This stoppage has a domino affect, creating more stress on small and medium-sized enterprises that our industry relies on for a multitude of building supply products.” And that will no doubt impact prices. “These types of delays cause unbudgeted expenses that will be pasted on to the consumer in some form or fashion.”

Kent Homes, the sister company of Kent Building Supplies, builds modular housing at its plant in Bouctouche, N.B. This year, production has been ramped up by both the Nova Scotia wildfires and an effort to provide social housing on Prince Edward Island.

Earlier this summer, the province of Nova Scotia bought 25 fully-furnished modular homes from Kent Homes and made them available to rent for people whose houses were destroyed by the Shelburne County and Halifax region wildfires. The project cost the province $7.4 million.

Now Kent Homes is providing modular homes in rural P.E.I. The company is partnering with that province’s division of the Canadian Mental Health Association and a contractor partner, 720 Solutions, to provide housing for vulnerable individuals with mental health and addiction issues. It’s constructing a two-storey, 10-unit modular apartment complex in Alberton, which is in the northwest part of the province.

The modular homes will be about 84 to 93 square metres (900 to 1000 square feet) in area and will include furnishings, appliances, and connection to services such as wells, septic, and telecom.

Orgill invests in growth with expanded field team and new DC

U.S. hardware wholesaler Orgill is making investments to elevate the company’s position in the home improvement industry. To accommodate the strong growth it has experienced through Covid, Orgill will expand its field sales team by as much as 10 percent. It already has more than 400 field service people working with its retailer customers in North America and around the world.

The company has seen a surge in both new customers and needs from existing customers.

“We really put an emphasis on consultative selling,” says David Mobley, Orgill executive vice-president of sales. “We want our team of sales professionals to serve as an extension of our customers’ businesses—an extra set of eyes and ears to help them find ways to grow and improve their operations.”

Earlier this year, Orgill announced plans to expand its retail campus in Collierville, Tenn. A large part of the expansion will include the construction of a 500,000-square-foot “Concept Centre.”

The new facility is expected to be completed in 2024 and will replace Orgill’s existing, 250,000-square-foot Concept Centre in Olive Branch, Miss.

“Having access to a Concept Centre is critical to how we help our customers,” says John Sieggreen, executive vice-president of retail at Orgill. “The Concept Centre is a real-world retail laboratory, where we can build and test retail concepts. We use this facility for everything from building and experimenting with the model stores we set up at our Dealer Markets, to setting up full categories or departments for our customers to see prior to implementing in their stores.”

Meanwhile, construction of a new, 800,000-square-foot distribution facility in Tifton, Ga., has continued through the summer. The DC will replace Orgill’s existing Tifton facility, which opened in 1995.

The new DC promises to include leading-edge distribution technology to streamline the order receiving and fulfillment process, says Randy Williams, Orgill’s EVP of distribution. The DC will use robots and feature a new goods-to-person picking system. “We are taking advantage of every opportunity to build technology and new distribution techniques into this facility that will help us create efficiencies for both our team and our customers,” Williams adds.

Orgill now operates eight distribution centres in North America, including one in Canada in London, Ont., with 6.7 million square feet of total capacity and more than 75,000 SKUs in each DC.

IKEA celebrates 80th anniversary, continues small store expansion

IKEA is 80 years old. The ready-to-assemble furniture business was founded on July 28, 1943, in Almhult, Sweden, by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad. His workspace was his uncle’s kitchen table and his first products were pens, wallets, and picture frames, which he delivered by mail. He got into furniture five years later.

There are 460 IKEA stores operating in 61 countries. IKEA’s revenues last year were €44.6 billion ($65 billion). IKEA has 15 full stores across Canada as well as several planning and design studios.

The company is also working on being accessible to more Canadians. That has included developing smaller, showroom-style outlets. The latest such small-format store will open Aug. 23 in Toronto’s eastern suburbs. The 7,489-square-metre store is in the Scarborough Town Centre. It will feature the same one-way flow layout familiar to shoppers at larger IKEA locations, with two entrance-exit points, each with their own check-out lanes.

The Scarborough store builds on the smaller urban model debuted at IKEA’s Downtown Toronto – Aura store (shown here), which opened last year.

Kristyl Lawson, formerly communications director at Orgill, has moved to the company’s HR team as director, talent development. She reports to Laura Freeman, EVP of human resources. Earl Bernard has stepped into the role of communications director. He joined Orgill in 2021, bringing with him prior experience in engineering, technology, and communications.

At Gillfor, Kent Finkbiner has been named to the newly created role of assistant division manager for the Calgary division, effective Aug. 7. He reports to division manager Clay Finkbiner, who was promoted to that position in May. Meanwhile, Bryan Payne has been appointed division manager for the Langley, B.C., division, effective Sept. 5. He joins Gillfor from Woodtone, where worked for the past decade, most recently as Canadian sales manager.

Gabriel Farias has been named VP of OSB manufacturing at LP Building Solutions. He brings 25 years of experience in the manufacturing industry to the role, including time at Armstrong Flooring and Armstrong World Industries. Landon Stephens, LP’s new director of OSB sales and marketing, joined the business in 2015 as an OSB account manager. He was promoted to the role of regional sales manager before serving as senior national OSB sales manager.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that dealers ranked new products as the most important information Hardlines can provide? That’s why the next issue of our trade magazine, Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly, will be our first-ever PRODUCTS ISSUE. If you have new products that you want to get out to our audience of 11,000 buyers, dealers, and managers, send their information today to our editor, Steve Payne. (We need print-quality pics and up to 100 words of text.) There is no charge for this! But act fast: we need your product info by this Friday, Aug. 25.

RETAILER NEWS

Sexton Group member Stettler Building Supplies in Stettler, Alta., will take on the Ace banner. Under the terms of a joint supply agreement between Ace Canada and Sexton, Ace dealers have access to Sexton’s LBM offerings while Sexton members are invited to join the Ace banner. Stettler Building Supplies is owned and operated by Ralph Wiebe.

Charlie Donevan turned 98 on July 31. And his entire town, including the mayor, was invited to the celebration, which included an official reopening of Donevan’s Hardware.
The store sits on the main street of Gananoque, Ont., situated alongside the St. Lawrence River. Donevan’s Hardware started as a general store in 1795 and was eventually purchased by James Donevan, Charlie’s grandfather.

RONA inc. is in the middle of changing its Lowe’s stores to the new RONA+ banner. Some 25 locations, all in Ontario, have been scheduled to switch. But one store will not make the cut. The Lowe’s in Vaughan, Ont., just north of Toronto, is scheduled to close sometime over the next couple of months. For its final weeks, it will carry a lot of clearance products as it winds down.

Peavey Mart has started accepting PayPal and Apple Pay for its online shopping platform. The retailer says the move is designed to guarantee “a frictionless and secure online shopping experience” as part of Peavey’s technology advancement strategy.

The Home Building Centre in Waterford, Ont., will host a grand opening of its revamped operations from Aug. 24 to 26. Owned and operated by Cortney and Jesse Buchan, the store was previously known as Riddoch Lumber. It was purchased by the Buchans in January 2022 and they began a full renovation in March of that year.

A Real Canadian Superstore in Red Deer, Alta., is the latest store in the Loblaw Cos. family to add heavy appliances. The program is being rolled out in partnership with Canadian Appliance Source using a store-within-a-store model. Loblaw announced its first foray into appliance sales in May at its store in Milton, Ont., and has since added the program to a store in Richmond, B.C.

Castle Building Centres’ newest member is Everything Exterior, a locally owned building materials store in Edmonton. In business for more than 10 years, it specializes in decking, siding, and stone. Owners Gagan Prince and Harp Thind are investing to move to a new location.

A new home and décor retail brand, “rooms + spaces,” held its first grand openings earlier this month in Woodbridge, Ont., and Vancouver. A further 22 rooms + spaces stores will host openings through September across the country. Canadian entrepreneur Doug Putman, who also owns Toys “R” Us and Sunrise Records in Canada, among other brands, acquired the leases to some of the spaces vacated by bankrupt retailer Bed Bath & Beyond (which had 55 stores in Canada) and Buy Buy Baby (11 stores in Canada).

Gillfor Distribution has partnered with Weyerhaeuser to distribute the manufacturer’s line of Trus Joist engineered wood products in western Canada. The line will be distributed through Gillfor’s six DCs from British Columbia to Manitoba. The two companies are finalizing logistical details and have set a target launch of Jan. 1, 2024.

Canfor Corp. reported a Q2 loss of $67 million, compared to profits of $531.6 million a year earlier. That was the third consecutive quarterly loss for the company, and includes a net $57.4 million reversal of a previously recognized inventory write-down. Sales of $1.45 billion were down from $2.17 billion a year earlier.

Western Forest Products reported a Q2 net loss of $20.7 million, compared to a $17.7 million loss in the previous quarter and net income of $38.6 million in the comparable period of 2022. Lumber sales fell to $212.4 million from $351.8 million. The 40 percent decline was attributed to lower prices and reduced shipment volumes.

Sales of existing homes dipped by 0.7 percent in July from the previous month. Despite sales gains in more than half of all local markets, declines in the Greater Toronto Area and B.C.’s Fraser Valley offset gains in Montreal, Edmonton, and Calgary. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) number of transactions came in 8.7 percent above the previous July—the largest year-over-year national sales increase in more than two years. (Canadian Real Estate Assoc.)

The value of building permits rose 6.1 percent in June to $11.6 billion, but residential permits fell by 1.8 percent to $6.9 billion. Ontario contributed to most of the decline, plunging by 11.4 percent. Across Canada, permits for 22,000 new dwellings were issued in June. (StatCan)

The latest digital edition of Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly is now online. In this issue, meet the winners of the 2022 Outstanding Retailer Award for Young Retailer of the Year, get the lowdown on the top 20 retail groups in the industry, and read up on the hottest products in outdoor living. The print edition of HHIQ has been mailed to 11,000 dealers and store managers across Canada. If you’re not getting your own copy—it’s free to retailers and retail head offices, so click here!

The Lowe’s banner in Canada will soon be a thing of the past. On July 27, new RONA+ banners went up at 10 Lowe’s stores in southern and southwestern Ontario. The former Lowe’s stores which have converted are located in Ancaster, Brantford, Cambridge, Hamilton, Kitchener, Niagara Falls, Sarnia, Waterloo, and the two stores in Windsor.

RONA inc. developed its RONA+ banner after Lowe’s Cos. sold its Canadian banners to Sycamore Partners, a New York City-based private equity firm, earlier this year. Among the stores they acquired were 61 Lowe’s stores in this country, all of which will eventually be converted to RONA+.

Lowe’s products will continue to be available—and gift cards and warranties will continue to be honoured—in the new-look RONA+ stores.

The 10 stores had grand reopening deals on July 29 and 30 that included “seasonal and stylish home décor essentials and building materials,” according to RONA marketing. The celebrations included food, activities for kids, prizes of RONA gift cards, and music.
RONA inc. has called the conversions “the first step in a wider plan aimed at redefining how Canadians shop for home improvement, creating new opportunities to improve how we serve them.”

Christian Nelson (shown here) is the store manager at the Niagara Falls store. He’s excited by the new look and stresses that all 160 associates at this location have been heavily involved in the conversion. He is quick to point out that the changes are more than simply cosmetic.

“The ‘plus’ in RONA+ means lower prices on thousands of articles in the store. It means a stylish assortment—more stylish than our competitors. It means brands that people know and love, flexible payment options, and our price match plus 10 percent guarantee.”

RONA inc. has also announced the next 15 Lowe’s store that will be converted to the new RONA+ banner in Ontario. They are in Barrie, Belleville, East Gwillimbury, Kanata, Kingston, London North West, London South West, Maple, Nepean, Orleans, Oshawa, Ottawa Gloucester, Pickering, Sudbury, and Whitby. The stores will remain open during the conversion.

The timetable for the conversion or disposition of the remaining 36 Lowe’s stores in Canada has not been revealed.

Including its remaining Lowe’s stores, RONA inc. operates or supplies some 425 corporate and affiliated (independent) home improvement stores under the RONA, RONA+, Réno-Dépôt, and Dick’s Lumber banners.

Vendors are waiting to get product in—and out—because of B.C. port strike

The strike by workers at ports in British Columbia has been dragging on, and off, for almost four weeks. The work stoppage ties in with the approaching busy shipping times for many vendors, especially those trying to get product to their retail customers in time for the Christmas selling season.

Richelieu Hardware, the country’s largest cabinet hardware and fastener company, is feeling the effects of the strike as far east as Montreal, where it has its headquarters. According to Eric Daigneault, general manager of divisions at Richelieu, the strike has had an impact on many levels, “mainly on new product launches and restocking on a few existing products.”

However, Daigneault admits that the disruption will cause big delays, which Richelieu has tried to mitigate. “We believe the strike will have caused delays of three to four days for each day the strike has lasted. This forced us to use some airfreight and rerouting to other ports in our supply chain.”

Erin Wizenberg is the general manager of Holland Imports, a major hardware supplier based in Surrey, B.C. “The strike has definitely affected us,” she says, adding that it poses a two-fold problem—getting ships in to port and getting product out.

Holland Imports carries a wide range of products through five divisions, and Christmas is a big one for them. But those products need to ship as soon as possible.

In-bound containers of goods that are on their way in to port or just came in are not moving. “So we’re looking at a five-day delay, even for ships that are in port. However product that needs to be picked and packed is still sitting on the water. We have 15 containers that are delayed and in the past five days only two of them have been retrieved.” Holland Imports has another 20 to 30 containers still sitting in China, most of them filled with Christmas products.

But ships are like airlines. If there aren’t enough “passengers,” they can cancel a stop, bypass a port, or cancel a ship altogether. This practice is called blank sailing, something companies like Holland Imports must contend with at the best of times.

“Christmas goods should be loaded now—and with blank sailings, that’s being pushed out 20 days. So it will be too late to pick and pack and get it out to our retailers before the end of September, otherwise my customers won’t take that product.”

Wizenberg says the delays aren’t affecting the cost of products directly, but holding costs for products that are stuck keep rising. Even ships that are heading to Vancouver are slowing their arrival times, she notes. “Because of the delays in port, even ships that are out on the water are slowing down, to save gas and decrease the amount of time sitting in port.”

Daigneault at Richelieu agrees that prices haven’t been affected. “Not so far, but it means headaches with our retailers and for our supply chain staff trying to find alternatives.”

Independents’ market share plateaued post-Covid: Hardlines Retail Report

Canada’s retail home improvement industry returned to something like normality in 2022 after seeing exceptional growth in 2020 and 2021 due to the effects of the pandemic, the 2023 Hardlines Retail Report has found.

It’s not only that high borrowing costs have curtailed the appeal of homebuying, leading to fewer reno projects. Household spending has also become more diffuse since the end of pandemic lockdown restrictions opened up more options.

When people were more or less limited to their homes, money that might otherwise have been budgeted for travel or dining out got redirected to improving the home as a multi-purpose space. Now those options are all back on the table.

For many dealers, this slowdown may come with some relief. The boom in sales activity during 2020 and 2021 came at the price of staffing headaches and uncertainties around supply chains.

The 2023 Hardlines Retail Report looks at how all these trends have translated into sales numbers, including breakdowns by banner, province, and store type. Sales at big box stores, for example, remained strong in 2022 even as they dipped slightly from the previous year.

During 2022, the Top Four retail groups further solidified their market dominance. While independent dealers saw sales rise in absolute terms, their growth failed to keep pace with the industry average of growth—after the temporary advantage they gained during Covid restrictions on large retailers.

Our exclusive and proprietary research offers insights on hot trends from private labels and e-commerce penetration to rewards programs and the challenges of consolidation. The Report also presents Hardlines’ calculations of RONA’s and Home Depot’s omnichannel growth, and forecasts for their growth in 2023 and 2024.

(The Hardlines Retail Report is now available for purchase. As a Premium Member-Subscriber, you save more than 20 percent on your order, and more than 30 percent when you buy the Retail Report bundled with its companion, the annual Hardlines Market Share Report. Click here to order!)

In what some dealers are calling the worst storm they’ve seen in their lives, certain parts of Nova Scotia got hit by up to 250 mm of rainfall last week. Roads and bridges in some counties got washed out—and the main rail line through the province was cut. Two children were swept to their deaths by the flooding and a 52-year-old man also lost his life. The province declared a State of Emergency.

Hardlines reached out to dealers in the affected areas for comment. “Bedford, Sackville, and Metro Halifax were hard hit,” said Andrew Payzant, president and CEO of Payzant Building Products Ltd., which has a group of Home Hardware Building Centres in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

“Many roads and infrastructure are still closed, and many people have badly damaged homes. Personally, all our nine stores are okay except for our Sackville [Nova Scotia] store. There, we have major flooding of the retail store as well as a warehouse and yard (pictured).

“A huge shoutout to our team that worked overtime to get open again the next morning, ready to serve the community.” Payzant also acknowledged the support from Home Hardware corporate, which opened up its Atlantic distribution centre in Debert, N.S., “so we could send a truck and bring in hundreds of badly-needed sump pumps and dehumidifiers to serve the community.”

Curtis Saulnier, manager of Nova Scotia Building Supplies in Blockhouse, N.S., said that his firm’s sister store in Chester, N.S. (both stores are on the south shore of Nova Scotia) got flooded. “Probably a $100,000 loss. Anything in a box—doors, windows—it acts as our warehouse.” Saulnier said the management hoped to have the losses cover by insurance. “The water shot right up through the floor drains.”

Saulnier said it was his day off on July 22, during the peak of the storm, but he phoned in to say he was coming to help at the Blockhouse store. He made it 15 minutes down the road before he was turned back by authorities. Lunenburg County, home to both stores, got hit really hard. He said the store has provided a large supply of sump pumps for residents. Fortunately, getting more supply was not a problem because the storm was so localized.

At Wolseley Canada, Alex Nahvi has been named general manager for Ontario. A 21-year veteran with the company, he assumes responsibility for various aspects of its operations in the province, including organizational planning, budgeting, cost control, and sales. Most recently Nahvi spent five years as the director of residential trade and counter in the Upper Midwest region, followed by three years as the director of branch management.

Rick Mather has been appointed vice-president of retail operations at Peninsula Co-op. Mather has spent over 30 years in retail management that included leadership roles at Woolco/Walmart Canada, where he held the position of store manager in Whitehorse and later in Victoria. Most recently, he served as the VP of retail operations at a start-up retail company.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that anyone trying to decide whether to go to the International Hardware Fair in Cologne, Germany, next spring now has even more reasons to do it? We already told you about the incredible Rhine Cruise we are adding to this event. Now, we’ve found a new cruise partner that will let you stay on board during the entire show. That means you don’t have to book a separate hotel to stay while attending the show. The Hardware Fair runs March 3 to 6, 2024. The cruise leaves Cologne March 6 and arrives in Amsterdam March 12. It’s going to be an amazing event. Click here for more info!

RETAILER NEWS

A Home Hardware Building Centre on Tecumseh Road West in Windsor, Ont., sustained $100,000 in damage because of a fire July 21, according to the Windsor Fire Service. There were no injuries and the store reopened for business the next day after the 11 pm fire. Store management told CTV News that they believe the fire started outside the building in a garbage can. Most of the damage is outside the store at the front, with the exterior cladding and signage charred. There was also water damage inside the store.

Canac has a new store in the works in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que. “We already have openings planned in 2024 in Sorel as well as Rivière-du-Loup, which would give us reason to believe we’ll be in a position, if all goes according to plan, to serve the people of Valleyfield in the middle of 2025,” marketing director Patrick Delisle told Le Journal Saint-François. Like most Canac outlets, the store will occupy some 40,000 square feet and employ between 100 and 125 staff.

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. reported Q2 net earnings that reached $508 million, from $387 million a year earlier. The company attributed the 31 percent gain largely to a $111 million tax charge that bit into its Q2 earnings in 2022. Revenues for the quarter rose 6.9 percent to $13.7 billion, while grocery same-store sales were up by 6.1 percent.

Dixon Home Hardware Building Centre in Fergus, Ont., celebrated its 100th anniversary last week. The store has been family-run since 1923. Current dealer-owners Jeff and Jason Dixon joined the business with their father in the 1990s. In 2004, the Dixons brought the store under the Home Hardware banner.

Donna Hansbrough, 68, got her job back as a Lowe’s associate in Rincon, Ga., after she had been fired a month earlier. Attempting to stop three suspected shoplifters, she had grabbed onto a shopping cart in the parking lot and allegedly got punched in the face three times for her trouble. Lowe’s and other big retailers have strict policies that forbid associates from confronting shoplifters. Hansbrough’s case created a social media backlash—with many customers calling for a boycott of Lowe’s. The company reinstated her “after senior managers became aware of the incident,” Lowe’s told the media.

“Sensory-sensitive” shoppers will have their own time to shop at Walmart, as the stores’ physical environments will be toned down. The discount retailer announced a two-hour window, every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. through August, in which stores will dim their lights, radios will be turned off, and switch to static images on TV monitors. The accommodations, the company says, are an attempt to improve the shopping experience for autistic people and those with sensory processing disorders.

U.S. hardware wholesaler Orgill is making investments to keep up with the unprecedented growth it has experienced over the past three years. It will expand its field sales team by as much as 10 percent, in addition to the more than 400 field service people it currently has working with its retailer customers in North America and around the world. Meanwhile, construction of an 800,000-square-foot distribution facility in Tifton, Ga., continues. The new DC will replace Orgill’s existing Tifton facility, which opened in 1995.

RDTS Canada has forged a partnership with Liteline, a company specializing in lighting fixtures for residential and commercial spaces. RDTS will support Liteline with merchandising to the Canadian market of Liteline’s Trenz-branded retail product lines.

Retail sales slid by 0.2 percent to $66 billion in May. Sales increased in five of nine subsectors and were led by hikes at motor vehicle and parts dealers, up 0.8 percent, and food and beverage retailers, which rose by one percent. In LBM and garden categories, sales were down 1.5 percent from April and 8.6 percent from the previous May. (StatCan)

Sales of existing U.S. homes fell by 3.3 percent in June to an annual rate of 4.16 million units. It was the lowest level of sales in five months. On a year-over-year basis, home resales tumbled by 18.9 percent. (National Association of Realtors)

U.S. housing starts declined by eight percent in June after a spike in May. The multi-family segment was hardest hit, but single-family projects were down by seven percent. The value of building permits issued in June was down 3.7 percent. (U.S. Census Bureau)

The latest instalment of the Hardlines podcast series, What’s In Store, has gone live. This episode features a lively discussion about the importance of e-commerce and why getting started needn’t be daunting for independent dealers. You’ll hear Hardlines editor Steve Payne in conversation with tech guru Romain Mercier, partner and co-founder at Vancouver-based PS&Co Data Lab. Sign up now for free and get updates about our latest podcasts in your inbox!

Online sales in Canada dropped by eight percent in the first quarter of 2023. More and more vendors are selling direct to consumers, competing with their own retail base. And 66 percent of customers expect retailers to know what they want and understand their needs—but only 32 percent of retailers have the full ability to turn their data into customer experiences.

These were some of the insights shared by at the Retail Council of Canada’s STORE23 conference, held at the end of May. Rob Graf (pictured), global VP and general manager, retail, for Salesforce, suggested that the solution to this discrepancy is for retailers to offer “unified engagement.” He explained that meant delivering a marketing, digital commerce, and in-store experience that is cohesive.

Retail customer “engagement” has come a long way since the first loyalty program in our industry—the introduction of Canadian Tire “money” in 1958. The idea back then was to have a customer think of Canadian Tire every time they peeked into their wallet and saw the impending “discount” just waiting for them at the store. But Canadian Tire money provided no insight into a customer’s behaviour, spending patterns, shopping habits, or preferred brands.

Now, 65 years later, Canadian Tire money has grown into the Triangle Rewards program, which provides a point of customer engagement for all of Canadian Tire’s banners, including Marks, PartSource, and Party City. Canadian Tire reported that 11.3 million Canadians were members of its Triangle Rewards program by the end of 2022. Sales of Triangle Reward members are outpacing that from non-members.

But the sales angle isn’t really the point. The point, from the Tire’s point of view, is to fully understand what its customers want, where they are spending more, where they are cutting back, and how they respond to promotions. Canadian Tire wants to possess all of the metrics of consumer behaviour in its auto, hardware, and leisure strongholds.

How companies can access federal funding to build their digital offering

A recent Hardlines survey showed that independent home improvement retailers were averaging close to 0.1 percent of sales being conducted via e-commerce.

Meanwhile, Canadian Tire made headlines in March 2022 when it announced that it would invest $3.4 billion in its “omnichannel” experience—in other words, a mix of bricks and mortar and e-commerce. Where can mom and pop stores find comparable money to invest in their digital futures? They can’t.

But one Vancouver-based marketing expert who specializes in customer engagement says that the independent dealers in our industry are “well positioned to catch up” with e-commerce. Partly, he says, this is a function of e-commerce platforms that are plummeting in price. But it’s also because effective investments in technology do not need to be grandiose to be effective.

“Covid highlighted to everybody the need to adopt more digitalization in their business—to survive,” Romain Mercier (pictured), partner and co-founder of Vancouver-based PS&Co Data Lab, told Hardlines in a recent “What’s In Store” podcast. (The podcast will distribute to subscribers next week. To sign up—it’s free—click here.)

“The Canadian Digital Adoption Program (PDAP) is $4 billion of government funding that is available for all Canadian organizations that generated over $500,000 in revenue in one of the previous three years. There are a few other criteria that you can review at the program’s website. But that fund provides each organization $15,000 in funding.”

“These funds could be used for brands to create a digital logo—or create a website. Businesses, Mercier says, can ask themselves “what would we need if we wanted to do a direct-to-consumer sale of a product? Or a distributor could use it to create digitalization in their supply chain. Or maybe put a QR code on their products to better manage their inventory.”

“I would strongly urge your subscribers to look into it because there’s a lot of very talented experts out there certified by the government that can help them, over multiple years, make sense of how we move forward,” Mercier said.

(Romain Mercier is one of the exciting speakers at our Hardlines Conference in Whistler, B.C., this fall! For a full speaker lineup—and to register—click here.)

Quebec chain Canac is cranking up the heat on expansion

Canac is pursuing an aggressive growth strategy, with several new store openings in the works. It’s investing $20 million to open a 40,000-square-foot store in Sorel-Tracy, about 100 km down the Saint Lawrence from Montreal. The family-owned Quebec chain expects to break ground next month in anticipation of an opening next spring.

“We’re currently opening one or sometimes two outlets a year,” CEO Martin Gamache said in an interview with La Presse. “We aim to do at least two and eventually a few more per year.”

Sorel-Tracy is just half an hour from Contrecœur, where Canac opened its 32nd store, including a warehouse, at the beginning of this year following pandemic-related delays. That site anchors the Cité 3000 commercial hub, part of an extension to the Port of Montreal along its south shore.

Meanwhile in Magog, a planned store is starting the process toward regulatory approval from scratch. Residents already approved a plan that would involve Canac assuming responsibility for a neighbouring strip of roadway. The enterprise is now seeking the green light on a revised plan that leaves that strip in municipal hands, but it can still fall back on the original approval if the second vote fails.

At the same time, Canac is pressing patriotic buttons in response to the acquisition of RONA by U.S. private-equity firm Sycamore Partners. Martin Gamache said of the rival that he doesn’t “believe they can go back to those values, family values like ours.”
Rivière-du-Loup is another market where Canac’s entry has faced delays. Work on that store is now expected to begin by early 2024, with an opening to follow in the fall.

All told, Canac has said it is investing $200 million in its expansion efforts over the next five years. In addition to store openings, those include a new fulfilment centre opposite Quebec City, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, this coming fall.

By 2025, the chain will have doubled the footprint of its Drummondville warehouse to one million square feet. “We also plan to invest in automatizing that centre because we want in the short term to be transactional online and deliver directly to our customers,” Gamache told Le Journal de Québec.

In an industry where succession is a major concern for many independents, especially family stores, the Moisans of Saint-Raymond, Que., have been lucky. Cousins and co-owners Marianne and Mathieu represent the third generation at the helm of the business, where she is comptroller and operations director and he heads up sales and procurement.

Marianne and Mathieu won the Outstanding Retailer Award last year in the Young Retailer category. Both started working in the family store in their early teens, and both knew by early adulthood it was where they wanted to settle in their careers.

But family policy dictated they fly the nest first and gain experience in another sector. Matthieu spent two months interning in construction estimation for a store customer. “It really clarified for me that my place was in the hardware store,” he reflects.

For her part, Marianne spent nearly a decade working for a Quebec-based aviation firm that contracted with the U.S. military to rent planes for training before qualifying as a Certified Public Accountant. That process required a two-year internship, “and of course my parents didn’t want it to be at the hardware store. So I left precisely to look elsewhere [in order] to follow the family rule.”

Family businesses can be fraught, with the potential to muddle personal and professional conflicts. But the Moisans agree they’re lucky to have complementary gifts and temperaments. The division of labour, Mathieu says, “almost happens by itself”. Marianne notes that she resembles the pair’s grandmother Thérèse, who was “really about numbers”, while Mathieu shares their grandfather Paulin’s “orient[ation] towards human relations” and “connections with vendors and customers.

“We still have the same vision, the same mentality,” says Mathieu. “That helps everything to go well.”

(Marianne and Mathieu are the subjects of an in-depth profile in the latest issue of our print magazine, Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly. HHIQ is free to dealers. Click here to learn more and get your subscription today!)

J.P. Towner has stepped down as CFO of Dollarama to the take up the same position at RONA inc. His appointment is effective Oct. 16. A graduate of Laval University and Harvard Business School, he has more than 15 years of corporate and financial experience, including time at BMO Capital Markets and Pomerleau Inc.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the biggest networking event of the year will be this year’s Hardlines Conference! It takes place Oct. 17 and 18, 2023, at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler Resort, and you don’t want to miss this one. The two-day program includes such speakers as Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux, SVP of affiliates, wholesale, and public affairs at RONA, and Geneviève Gagnon, president of three companies including Gagnon La Grande Quincaillerie. Hardlines Weekly Report member-subscribers can take advantage of a 20 percent discount on registration, while special pricing is available to dealers.

RETAILER NEWS

Lowe’s Cos. will roll out a new department to 300 of its stores south of the border—a “one-stop shop” that will sell farm, ranch and outdoor products, including brands such as Carhatt and Wrangler. The obvious strategy here is to lure rural shoppers from Tractor Supply. “Our penetration of rural stores gives us an opportunity to drive sustainable profit growth due to the much lower expense base that’s required to operate these stores,” Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison said during a recent earnings call.

Home Depot is officially kicking off Halloween in July. “Enthusiasts are decorating earlier than ever before,” the company says on its website, which features a full lineup of monsters and ghosts to follow on the success of “Skelly,” its 12-foot skeleton decoration. Besides a 13-foot Jack Skellington figure (from The Nightmare Before Christmas), avid trick-or-treaters can meet Lethal Lily the Witch, a high-tech figure that stands seven feet high and has eight servo motors in her head that replicate facial movements with moving mouth and rolling eyes.

Ottawa’s Carlingwood Shopping Centre, which is anchored by the largest Canadian Tire in the country, is for sale. The “Remarkable Retail” mega store opened last fall. At 135,000 square feet, it is one of two such footprints operated by Canadian Tire—the other being in Welland, Ont. The Canadian Tire store at Carlingwoood has 19 years remaining on its lease. The sale of the mall is being handled by TD Securities and commercial real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield. Other anchors at the mall include a Loblaw grocery store, a Rexall pharmacy, and a Dollarama.

SUPPLIER NEWS

RDTS Canada is celebrating the 10-year milestone of its partnership with French home improvement retailer Bricomarché and marketing agency CPM France. The relationship began with the launch of the Imagine merchandising program in June 2013. RDTS and Bricomarché began working together to develop the program, an idea that had been germinating since 2009, in 2011. Imagine garnered CPM France an award from point-of-purchase trade group POPAI in 2018.

The annualized pace of total housing starts for all areas of Canada increased 41 percent in June (281,373 units) compared to May (200,018 units). This represents the largest month-to-month rate change in the last 10 years. This is mostly due to multi-unit starts which accounted for about 82 percent of total starts. (CMHC)

Sales of existing homes in Canada logged a 1.5 percent increase between May and June, a smaller gain than in April and May. Sales for the month were up in a little over half of all local markets, with gains in British Columbia and Alberta offsetting fewer sales in the Greater Toronto Area. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) number of transactions in June came in 4.7 percent above June 2022. That was the largest year-over-year national sales increase in two years. (CREA)

Amazon, the world’s largest company with US$514 billion in revenue last year, gets 41.5 percent of Canadian e-commerce spending by consumers, data shows. This compares to Amazon’s 37.6 percent e-commerce market share south of the border, 51.1 percent in Germany, and 25.2 percent in the U.K.