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.

Retail brands continue to find ways to focus on projects, initiatives, and causes that tie in with their communities while providing a focus for the philanthropic efforts of both customers and staff.

Take RONA inc. The giant home improvement retailer has recently redefined the mission of its charitable arm, the RONA Foundation. In the past, the foundation had worked to raise funds to contribute to the improvement of the lives of children and their families around the world–especially those living with disease, in poverty, or with disabilities.

Now, the foundation is continuing in a similar vein, but bringing the objectives closer to home. Its new mission is to improve the quality of life of Canadians in need by revitalizing their living environments or making it easier to access housing. In particular, the RONA Foundation aims to help victims of domestic violence and their children, low-income families, and people with disabilities or mental health issues.

The RONA Foundation plays “an essential role in the vision we have for the future of RONA,” says Catherine Laporte, vice-president of marketing at RONA. “Housing is a basic need for individuals and families. We decided to focus our philanthropic efforts on this cause because we believe that by helping people in need to have access to a safe home and a healthy living environment, we can improve their quality of life and offer them a better future,” she adds. Given RONA’s role in the construction and home improvement sector, “It’s a natural choice for us to opt for this mission, which is perfectly aligned with our business operations.”

At The Home Depot Canada, doing good is also an important part of the corporate identity. The Home Depot Canada Foundation, through its Orange Door Project, is committed to battling youth homelessness. It provides funds to organizations working with youth at risk of—or experiencing—homelessness. By 2030, the company intends to have invested $125 million toward this cause.

Recently, Home Depot Canada launched a new summer hat, the sales of which are going to the foundation’s TradeWorx program. TradeWorx offers at-risk youth access to resources and training for a career in the trades.

But a good cause is part of the DNA of most retailers. At Home Hardware, dealer-owners worked with Tree Canada over the past 30 years to plant more than 30,000 trees in communities across the country. That’s in addition to the many causes the retailer takes up both nationally and at the store level.

Timberkids Charitable Foundation gives TIMBER MART dealers a platform to help give back to their local communities. Every year, TIMBER MART members from across Canada make numerous donations to help their local children’s charities and Timberkids matches them. It’s an investment, the company says, in improving the lives of children and the well-being of future generations of Canadians.

Hudson’s Bay Co. has a deep history in Canada, including with Indigenous peoples. So the recent alignment of its Hudson’s Bay Foundation with NIB Trust Fund (NIBTF) makes sense. The fund focuses on the challenges faced by First Nations communities. As part of this partnership, the Hudson’s Bay Foundation has committed $1.2 million to NIBTF over three years to address the impacts of the Indian Residential School system and support Indigenous communities, working toward further reconciliation.

Examples will abound in this industry alone of retailers doing good. At a local level, most stores find ways to give back to their communities and their customers in their own way. These efforts become a way to rally the community, inspire staff, and provide a balance of commerce and caring for store owners.

Cologne Hardware Fair is a compelling draw for Canadians. So why don’t they go?

Eisenwarenmesse – International Hardware Fair, is returning to Cologne, Germany, in 2024. The biennial event will be held from March 3 to 6, 2024, and it has already experienced strong response from the hardware industry, as major companies from Germany and 45 countries around the world have so far confirmed their participation at the world’s largest hardware show, with confidence among exhibitors returning after many took a pause in 2022.

But only a handful of them will be from Canada.

“The high demand confirms the importance of the Eisenwarenmesse – International Hardware Fair as the most important global platform for the presentation of new products, services, and technologies, as well as for maintaining business relationships from the hardware segment,” said Matthias Becker, the show’s director. “We are very optimistic that we will achieve the planned exhibition area of 165,000 square metres [1.8 million square feet] in a total of six exhibition halls.”

Hardlines has attended this show for decades. We are always amazed, and somewhat confounded, by the lack of North American, and especially Canadian, participants. The show has proved an effective springboard for many Canadian vendors to reach foreign markets (not just the U.S.!). While the major retailers send the occasional team, regional retailers and the buying groups consistently overlook this show—at their peril. We encourage Canadians to consider this as part of their search for new products or customers.

This year, dealers and suppliers alike have even more reason to consider Germany next spring. Hardlines, with the Building Supply Industry Association of B.C., has organized a Rhine cruise from Cologne to Amsterdam aboard the Avalon Passion. It departs Cologne on March 6 and arrives in Amsterdam on March 13. (Contact Thomas Foreman, president of the BSIA of B.C., as soon as possible to guarantee your spot.)

Besides the new products on the show floor, the International Hardware Fair continues to build its range of educational services and workshops to make for a more rounded experience. “DIY Boulevard” provides a showcase for dozens of companies to present their products in an environment resembling the checkout setup in stores. Seminars historically have provided platforms for some of the newest ideas and leading retail trends. And networking opportunities can connect delegates with some of Europe’s top DIY retailers.

(For more information on next year’s show, click here.)

We sneak a peak at Home Depot Canada’s latest stylings for the Christmas season

Home Depot Canada held a product preview recently to showcase its assortments and design trends for the Christmas holiday season. Home Depot is growing this category and working on building awareness among its customers that it’s a destination for more than tools and building materials.

The retailer will launch its Christmas collection in the first week of October, as its Halloween push starts to wind down. The majority of the holiday seasonal assortment will be available online only, so Home Depot’s intention is to drive customers to its website as well as to its stores.

While repair and reno projects ensure strong sales through the first half of the year, seasonal sales shore up its business in the second half of the year. “Christmas is very important for us. Christmas and Halloween both drive traffic into our stores,” says Konstance Sevastos (shown here), divisional product merchant for the Christmas and Halloween categories.

She talks about how easy it is to get customers into the store during the first half of the year: spring and early summer are important home improvement times for consumers and contractors alike. But getting people to think of Home Depot as a destination for décor, especially seasonal items and accessories with real design elements, is a newer proposition.

“The back half of the year is different; these products bring people into stores in the back half.” She says people readily consider Home Depot as a destination for products like power tools and lumber. “But we’re trying to get customers the knowledge that we have other collections.”

“People don’t realize it’s all available from Home Depot,” says Cindy Jardim, who oversees trend and design for the retailer. “It’s not what people expect from us.”

EDRA/GHIN, the combined global trade body for home improvement retailers, has launched a collaborative taskforce to help the sector reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

The initiative specifically targets “Scope 3” emissions, which address the lifecycle impact of retailers’ products on the environment. Factors involved range from the efficiency of the retailers’ supply chains right through to how their customers use—and dispose of—the products they buy for their homes.

The following leading home improvement retailers from across the world have agreed to act as the founder members of the taskforce: Adeo (Europe, South America, South Africa); Bunnings (Australia & New Zealand); Cainz (Japan); The Home Depot (North America); Hornbach (Europe); Kesko (Scandinavia); Kingfisher plc (UK & Europe); OBI (Europe); and Sodimac (South America).

For retailers, Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions make up more than 90 percent of their overall emissions. Given the scale of their impact, they are the most important, but also the most difficult to address, as they fall outside of retailers’ direct operational control.

A range of methods is used to measure and report on companies’ Scope 3 carbon footprints. This causes confusion and inefficiencies for retailers trying to lower their emissions across their value chains and creates an additional burden on their suppliers.

The EDRA/GHIN Scope 3 taskforce will aim to address this challenge by finding a common ground for consistent methodologies in how carbon data is treated through the supply chain. Best practices can be developed in both the reporting but also the acceleration of the home improvement industry’s efforts to reduce Scope 3 emissions. These learnings will also be shared with a wider learning group for all EDRA/GHIN members to benefit from.

In related news, The Home Depot has announced its intention to cut emissions in its outdoor power equipment lines. The retailer expects that by the end of 2028, more than 85 percent of its sales in both Canada and the U.S. of push lawn mowers and handheld outdoor equipment will run on rechargeable battery technology instead of gas. The company anticipates that this transition will reduce over 2,000,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually from the exhaust of residential lawn equipment.

“Climate change is a threat none of us can afford to ignore,” said John Herbert, general secretary of EDRA/GHIN. “For home improvement retailers, this is a positive move where we can help them find ways to come together to address one of the fundamental environmental issues for our planet, while developing their business.”

EDRA/GHIN represents 224 retail companies in 78 countries, and the initiative is seen as an important way to unite the industry around this issue. The program was announced at the recent Global DIY-Summit, held earlier this month in Berlin.

(Any home improvement retailer that would like more information and to join GHIN, the global network, please contact info@edra-ghin.org.)

Dale Elliott has departed from his role as CEO at BSH Home Appliances (Canada). Elliott spent 16 years there. His career includes stints with National Hardware, Dremel, Emerson Electric, and Philips.

DID YOU KNOW…?

…that the Q4 edition of our sister publication, Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly, will feature a special showcase for new products? HHIQ is a traditional print magazine that is mailed to 11,000 dealers and managers across Canada. If you have up to three new products (print-quality photos and maximum 100-word descriptions), please contact our Editor, Steve Payne by July 21. This is a free service—so tell your marketing manager about this and take advantage of the free exposure you’ll get to the entire dealer community!

RETAILER NEWS

A boa constrictor was found in a shrub last week at a Canadian Tire garden centre. Officials at the store in Richmond Square, Calgary, said the non-venomous snake was spotted by an employee. Store employee Jen Bishop, who is knowledgeable about snakes, the Calgary Herald reports, made a makeshift home for the snake where it could warm up until a proper home can be found for it.

Canac is investing $200 million in its expansion efforts over the next five years, including the opening of two new stores per year. This fall, it will open a fulfilment centre opposite Quebec City, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

A man has been arrested after allegedly stealing a forklift from a Lowe’s store in Waldorf, Md., driving it to a nearby Home Depot parking lot, and fatally running down a woman there. The 20-year-old man faces an array of charges that include first- and second-degree murder. The deceased was 73 years old.

One of the most unusual charity events in the home improvement industry was held this past weekend. The Canadian Tire Welland Floatfest saw more than 1,800 people take to the Welland Recreational Canal in flotation devices. The popular annual event is in support of local charities and food banks. Canadian Tire has an almost 90-year history in Welland, Ont., and established its credit card division, Canadian Tire Acceptance (now Canadian Tire Financial Services), in the city in 1961.

As loyalty programs become a more and more integral part of retailers’ strategies, some customers who are non-members of these programs are complaining of a double standard at supermarket checkouts. “Those who follow the system get one price and those who don’t have the skills for the system get another,” retired civil servant Hélène Manuri told TVA Nouvelles, citing older and less tech-savvy customers in particular.

Affiliated Distributors has added The Baron Group, a U.S. co-operative buying group serving independent groundwater systems distributors, into its network. The deal brings independent distributors with almost 100 locations, including one Canadian member, Winnipeg’s Baker Manufacturing, into AD’s pipe, valves, and fittings division.

SUPPLIER NEWS

The past month has seen a spike in lumber prices, partly driven by uncertainty stemming from wildfires in Canada. At the same time, strong U.S. housing starts have driven up demand. Cash prices are up 22 percent from where they were on June 1. Last week, they reached US$420 per 1,000 board feet of Western spruce, pine, and fir (SPF) two-by-fours, according to a report by Fastmarkets. That was up from $343 on June 1 but 74 percent below May 2021’s record high of $1,630.

Construction spending in the U.S. during May was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.93 trillion. That’s up 0.9 percent from April. During the first five months of the year, construction spending amounted to $740.8 billion, 2.9 percent above the same period in 2022. (U.S. Commerce Dept.)

NOTED

Canada’s Competition Bureau is calling on the federal government to support new players who could disrupt grocery retail. The market for that segment, it says, is concentrated too heavily among a few huge domestic interests like Loblaw and Empire Co. The report concluded that “more competition” is critical to “help bring grocery prices in check” and proposes encouraging independent and foreign retailers to set up shop in Canada.

Since being sold off by Lowe’s Cos. in a deal that closed early in February, RONA inc. has been developing a strategy to manage the future of its 60-plus Lowe’s-bannered stores in Canada. Now, five months in, the retailer has announced its transition plan.

RONA is beginning the Lowe’s stores’ conversion to the RONA banner, but with a twist. The stores will bear a new RONA designation, RONA+. The conversions will start at the end of July and will take place over several months. The first 10 Lowe’s stores to be converted, all located in Ontario, are in Ancaster, Brantford, Cambridge, Hamilton, Kitchener, Niagara Falls, Sarnia, Waterloo, and the banner’s two stores in Windsor.

“This is an important step in our vision for the future of RONA,” said Catherine Laporte, vice-president of marketing at RONA. “With these conversions, we are making a significant investment and renewing our commitment to the RONA brand.” Laporte called the new signage “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.”

Once considered the retailer’s lead brand while under the ownership of Lowe’s Cos., the Lowe’s stores made some inroads with Canadian consumers, but never achieved the critical mass of its competitor, Home Depot Canada. Of the roughly 440 stores in RONA’s stable of corporate and dealer-owned locations, 61 are Lowe’s big boxes, although none are in RONA’s home province of Quebec, where RONA’s own big box stores are firmly established.

By comparison, Home Depot has 182 stores in Canada, including 22 in Quebec.

As the Lowe’s stores are converted, they will remain open, while guarantees offered by Lowe’s will be honoured, gift cards will still be accepted, and the Lowe’s private brands will remain in the stores’ offering. RONA says it will also continue to maintain its commitment to Canadian vendors and to its affiliated dealer network, who are a key component of the company’s vision.

Vaughn Crofford, former head of vendors’ association CHHMA, dies at 73

Vaughn Crofford, former president of the Canadian Hardware and Housewares Manufacturers Association, has died. After a brief illness, he succumbed to cancer at Lakeridge Health in Ajax, Ont., on June 25.

Born in 1949 in Craik, Sask., Crofford began his career in the late 1960s working part-time at the Federated Co-op in Salmon Arm, B.C., before becoming a full-time clerk in Calgary in 1968. As he once told a CHHMA gathering, “If you grew up anywhere on the Prairies, you know what co-op is all about.”

Crofford rose through a series of management roles in British Columbia and Alberta over the course of 16 years, then moved to Federated Co-operatives’ Saskatoon head office as part of a management team charged with turning around the hardware department. Crofford served as FCL’s director of marketing until 1994, when he made the leap to Ontario—and to the vendor side of the industry—as president of CHHMA, which would become the Canadian Home Products Trade Association in 2021.

During his tenure, the vendor community had to navigate the rise of the large retailers and the power they bring to the negotiating table. He was also front and centre as the industry confronted changing environmental standards. Crofford was a key player in establishing the Canadian Electrical Stewardship Association, which recycles appliances and power tools in British Columbia. “If the important thing is that we reduce the landfill and leave our world a cleaner place, then focus on that and say, ‘how do we get there?’” he once said. “If it’s by adding 10 cents onto the price of a can of paint, then let’s do it.”

Hardlines editor Steve Payne recalls Crofford as a “very collegial and community-minded individual,” who always took time to share his thoughts with the trade media. “He was one of the first people I met when I started at Hardware Merchandising magazine in 1995. He’d patiently explain the industry to me and never failed, at the same time, to tell me an entertaining story.”

Crofford and his life partner, former CHHMA operations director Maureen Hizaka, retired from the organization in 2018. Prior to his retirement, the CHHMA recognized Crofford’s more than 50 years in the industry by inducting him into its Hall of Fame.

In addition to Hizaka, he is survived by his daughters Susan (Ryan) and Sandra (Jamie) and grandson Austin Vaughn Kerr.

We go behind the scenes of Hardlines’ Retail Report in our latest podcast

The Hardlines Annual Retail Report will be published later this month, giving readers access to an exclusive and comprehensive overview of the state of the industry in Canada. In anticipation of the report’s launch, Hardlines president Michael McLarney has shared a preview of its insights in a new podcast.

The industry has evolved in the years since the first editions of the Retail Report were published. With the consolidation of smaller groups and chains, there are simply fewer players to keep track of in absolute terms.

“We’ve seen so many players come and go,” McLarney says, “but that just means the remaining players are more complex, more multifaceted, and with further reach.” Fewer regional banners, for instance, has translated into more data to crunch at the national level.

Hardware, home improvement, and building materials make up a sizeable—and growing—chunk of retail sales in Canada. The Retail Report puts the annual sales total at more than $61 billion. “That’s almost 10 percent of all retail trade in Canada.”

It’s a figure that “shows tremendous growth through [the pandemic]. That’s something we’ve all known anecdotally but Hardlines is the only organization that actually measures that.”

The report, however, goes beyond the scale of the industry as a whole. “We’re also drilling down to understand a whole series of things about the industry … not just sales in total but how much comes from big boxes” and other formats, McLarney adds. That includes a breakdown of online sales, a new metric for the report.

To get all this data, Hardlines carefully examines the records of publicly traded companies, while a survey of dealers helps to fill out the picture for the independents. “It’s a lot of work: we do a lot of number crunching. We have a spreadsheet the size of a JumboTron scoreboard at a Blue Jays’ game.”

“What we do is completely exclusive; no one else has this information,” the Hardlines founder stresses. When major newspapers report on industry stats, “they’re quoting our numbers.”

(You can sign up now for free and get an email alert when new podcast episodes are released!)

The North American Hardware and Paint Association will host its 2023 NHPA Independents Conference, Aug. 2 and 3 in Dallas. The industry-wide event brings together retailers, wholesaler representatives, vendors, and other channel supporters.

Over the course of two days, the conference will share retailer success stories, provide opportunities to share experiences and best practices, and help members of the independent channel expand their networks.

“We are counting down the days until we can gather with exceptional members of the channel who are committed to the continued growth and evolution of the independent home improvement industry,” says NHPA president and CEO Bob Cutter. “We are honoured to be the place where the industry’s most innovative, progressive minds come together to learn from each other and choose to excel.”

In addition to opportunities to network with peers and partners, the conference also features keynote addresses from former executives of Amazon and Google. Panels of leading retailers will discuss how they have used technology to solve some of their toughest operational challenges.

“We have business problems, and we have to leverage technology to combat those problems because consumers are engaging with businesses through technology,” says keynote speaker Chris Hood, former head of business innovation and strategy for Google. “It’s no longer about trying to adapt. It’s about accelerating your digital outcomes so you can keep up with consumer demands.”

“We are very excited to be supporting the NHPA Independents Conference,” says Boyden Moore, president and CEO of Orgill, a key sponsor of the event. “This conference serves as a hub of innovation and idea generation for independent dealers of all shapes, sizes, and distribution affiliations. We look forward to the opportunity to connect across the channel at this year’s event.”

(A limited number of tickets remain for the industry event of the year. For the best rate, go to www.YourNHPA.org/conference to purchase an individual ticket or a table of six or eight.)

ATTENTION VENDORS: SEND US YOUR NEW PRODUCTS!

“Hardlines and its sister publications are an excellent way to get the word out on new products. While we can’t guarantee we will feature your product releases, we can guarantee one thing: if you don’t send them to us, we can’t choose your products for our editorial content! This fall, we will publish a special 2024 Products Issue of Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly, our 11,000+ circulation trade magazine for retailers. Send your products to our editors Geoff McLarney or Steve Payne.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the latest episode of the Hardlines podcast series, What’s In Store, is now live? In this instalment, Hardlines’ own Michael McLarney discusses the forthcoming edition of our Annual Retail Report. Learn how Hardlines measures the size of the industry, what we count, what trends and challenges dealers are facing, and where their sales are headed. Sign up now for free and get updates about our latest podcasts in your inbox!

RETAILER NEWS

The Home Depot Canada Foundation is releasing a new summer hat, with proceeds going to the foundation’s TradeWorx program. TradeWorx offers youth experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness access to resources and training for a career in the trades. (Order one for this good cause here.)

Home Hardware Stores Ltd. has won the top large fleet award from the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada. Judging is based on each fleet’s overall safety regime and over-the-road safety records. Home Hardware currently runs 148 tractors and 605 trailers. The fleet ran 20.8 million kilometres last year. According to trucknews.com, Home Hardware is a 10-time winner of the award.

IKEA Canada has revealed a new mascot on TikTok and is inviting feedback on its name. Social-media followers are asked to choose from Billy, Vän, Hex, or Blue as the moniker for the cartoon-like builder. Several commenters, however, sought a fifth write-in option: Meatball, after the familiar staple of the chains’ restaurants.

Home Depot will pay US$72.5 million to settle a long-standing class action lawsuit from 272,000 employees in California. The grievances, which date back to 2012, include the company making employees wait, unpaid, while stores were locked at the end of shifts, the suit alleges. Employees were told to be off the clock while they collected and put on aprons, the lawsuit also claims. Home Depot, contrary to state law, also allegedly rounded clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest quarter hour. Home Depot denies the claims but will settle.

Overstock.com is the winning bidder for Bed Bath & Beyond’s intellectual property and digital assets. The bankrupt housewares retailer’s stores are not included in the deal, which is valued at US$21.5 million. Its terms still need to be okayed by a New Jersey bankruptcy court. A separate auction for Bed Bath & Beyond’s Buy Baby Buy franchise was slated for last week.

SUPPLIER NEWS

Gesco Industries LP has completed the sale of its assets to Ironbridge Equity Partners. Gesco consists of floor-covering distributor Shnier; Division9, which supplies commercial flooring products to the architecture and design sectors; and Tierra Sol Ceramic Tile. Ironbridge, a Toronto-based private equity firm, previously owned Gesco from 2007 to 2013.

Chervon has reached an agreement with John Deere that will allow its Ego brand of battery-powered lawn care equipment to be carried by John Deere dealers. The complete Ego range of mowers, blowers, trimmers, edgers, chainsaws, and snow blowers will be available at John Deere dealers in the U.S. and Canada starting in the fall.

Ipex has announced the closure of its acquisition of the Valencia Pipe Co.’s plastic pipe and fittings manufacturing division. This deal brings into the Ipex fold two manufacturing facilities (in Walla Walla, Wash., and Kingman, Ariz.) and a distribution centre, also in Kingman.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

The Consumer Price Index slowed to 3.4 percent in May. That’s down from a year-over-year inflationary increase of 4.4 percent in April. Gasoline prices were the biggest reason for the slower rate of inflation. If gasoline prices were removed from the basket of goods that the CPI uses for its calculations, inflation would have been running at 4.4 percent, as gas prices have dropped more than 18 percent on a year-over-year basis. (StatCan)

According to studies cited by The Home Depot in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its outdoor power equipment, using a gas-powered lawn mower for an hour creates as much air pollution as driving 483 kilometres in an average car. Running a gas leaf blower for an hour creates the same volume of emissions as a 1,770-kilometre drive, roughly the distance from Toronto to Halifax.

With last week’s announcement of cuts to staff and systems at RONA inc., the company continues to make changes. Following the elimination of 500 positions nationwide, including 200 head office positions in Boucherville, Que., and the planned rebranding of its Lowe’s stores (more on that next week—Editor), RONA has a new boss.

The appointment of Andrew Iacobucci (shown here) to the role of CEO was unveiled just one day after the cuts were announced. Prior to joining RONA, Iacobucci was executive vice-president and chief commercial officer at US Foods, a food distribution company based in Rosemont, Ill. Before that, he spent 10 years at Loblaw Cos. Iacobucci’s appointment takes effect in July.

Iacobucci will live in the Boucherville area, where he will work at the head office alongside the other members of RONA’s senior leadership team. He’s been brushing up on his French and, by the time his nomination becomes effective in July, he will have completed a four-week immersion at a language school in Quebec City to better interact with employees and customers.

Iacobucci will replace Garry Senecal, who had a brief tenure as interim CEO. Senecal started work at RONA in March, one month after Sycamore Partners closed the RONA acquisition. He replaced Tony Cioffi, who had been at the helm since January 2022.

Before joining RONA, Senecal was also at Loblaw. He spent almost a decade with the grocery retailer, most recently as president of its market division. (He didn’t even update his LinkedIn profile with details of his contract at RONA! —your observant Editor.) He will stay on until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition.

Home Depot warns shareholders to reject offer from Canadian investment firm

Home Depot issued a notice last week advising shareholders to reject a “mini-tender” offer from a Canadian investment firm. TRC Capital has tendered an offer that’s almost five percent below Home Depot’s recent trading price, which the retailer considers unacceptable.

TRC Capital’s bid is for less than five percent of Home Depot’s outstanding common stock, thereby avoiding many disclosure and procedural requirements of the SEC in the U.S. and securities regulators in Canada. Bidders making mini-tender offers don’t have to file any documents with the SEC or provide withdrawal rights to investors who tender their shares.

TRC Capital, based in Toronto, has an ongoing strategy of making offers that are 4.5 percent below current trading prices, and below the SEC threshold of five percent of overall shares. It made a bid for Lowe’s Cos. in 2016. TRC has made similar mini-tender bids in recent months for ScotiaBank, PayPal, BMO, Capital One, Procter & Gamble, and Disney.

The strategy can catch shareholders off guard, driving them in some cases to accede to the bid under the belief that they need to sell off. The mini-tender bids can also allow sellers to avoid brokerage fees, which makes the lower offer price more attractive. The company then hopes to trade the shares on an open market for a high price closer to the actual trading price. In some cases, the very act of making the mini-tender can drive the share price up even more.

In fact, TRC’s strategy is so consistent that the companies it has vied for have issued a standard format press release for warning their investors to reject the offers.

New banners fill home décor and housewares space as retail brands depart

The departure of Bed, Bath & Beyond from Canada is just the latest casualty in an ever-evolving retail shuffle in that category. However, as quickly as they disappear, other retailers move in to fill the void. In BB&B’s case, Canadian Tire stepped in to assume a dozen of the leases at various locations across the country. Soon after, another group announced it is taking over at least 21 former Bed, Bath & Beyond locations—and possibly as many as 30—after that chain entered bankruptcy protection.

Putman Investments—already an operator of multiple retail brands—will launch a new retailer called rooms + spaces. Putman Investments is an Ancaster, Ont.-based company that already owns Toys “R” Us, Sunrise Records, FYE (For Your Entertainment), HMV UK, and T. Kettle (formerly Davids Tea).

Homewares brand Fox Home has made its Canadian debut with a 4,000-square-foot retail space in Toronto’s Eaton Centre. Its offerings include kitchen, tabletop, textiles, bathroom, and decoration categories. Seven more stores in Toronto-area malls are planned by the end of the year. Locations at Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Fairview Mall, Square One Shopping Centre, and Sherway Gardens are slated to open by the end of next month.

Burrow is a relatively new company that is digitally native—and going after the home space in a big way with furniture and accessories. Its head office is in New York and its Canadian office is in Vancouver. Stephen Kuhl (shown here), with business partner Kabeer Chopra, established the company in 2017. Their business plan was to design and package furniture that could be delivered by mail and assembled easily.

“What if we could design all the furniture to ship in the mail?” Kuhl tells Hardlines. While he observed that some companies are already doing something similar, he asks: “Then why not design better?”

Burrow relies on good design that is modular even after assembly, he says. A line of outdoor patio furniture features powder-coated stainless steel and aluminum parts. The components can easily be pulled apart for storage. “It’s about as durable as you can make outdoor furniture.”

Greater Montreal-based BMTC Group is streamlining its previous multi-banner approach, consolidating all its furniture and appliance stores, including former Brault & Martineau and EconoMax outlets, under the Tanguay brand. In making the announcement last month, the company also revealed it is opening 11 new Tanguay stores, including locations in Montreal, Gatineau, and Sherbrooke.

Retail hates a vacuum, and the movement among many players, especially post-Covid, is seeing even more players come forward to provide products for the home renovation and decoration markets.

In the bid to make bricks and mortar stand out amidst growing online sales, retailers will have to be willing to adapt with new strategies, says Retail Prophet Doug Stephens.

Stephens was the keynote speaker at the recent STORE conference held by the Retail Council of Canada. He stressed the importance of capturing a customer’s attention as an ongoing and daily challenge. But capturing that attention then means providing a memorable experience, so that the customer will be able to recall the interaction.

That edict is increasingly important, he notes, as so many retailers are getting into new categories. “Every retailer could sell everything,” he says. “For example, Home Depot sells shoes; Loblaws sells tools.” With so much blurring of the lines, having a convenient location and a reasonable price-value equation are not enough. They are no longer the sole metrics that retailers need to abide by.

What is the retail experience supposed to be today? “Most retailers think only of the ‘look’—but the sense of sight accounts for only 20 percent of a customer’s experience,” Stephens says. By focusing strictly on the visual, “you’re leaving about 80 percent on the table.” The customer experience is actually much more holistic than that, and should include smell, sound (music), taste, and touch.

Stephens addressed another important tool that is becoming a crucial part of every marketer’s kit: delivering a message about a company by telling stories effectively. Know who you are and focus on your story. Retailers that can tell good stories can achieve legitimate “earned” media coverage.

“If we want to extricate ourselves from the daily grind of competition, this is the way to do it.” Experience, he says, equals content. But once you start, don’t be afraid to make a meaningful commitment. “And go all in!”

At Lowe’s Cos., Quonta (Que) Vance has been named EVP, pro and home services. He reports to Lowe’s chairman and CEO Marvin Ellison. Vance most recently served as Lowe’s SVP, transportation and final mile. He has more than 25 years of retail experience and leadership roles with store operations, merchandising, and supply chain working with Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Target.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that this year’s Hardlines Conference will be held in Whistler, B.C.? And that members of the BSIA of British Columbia have access to special pricing for the conference of almost one-third off regular registration? No, we are not making this up! It’s going to be an amazing combined event, as our friends at the BSIABC will host a table-top trade show for its supplier-members. (Click here for more details or contact Michelle Porter at Hardlines.)

RETAILER NEWS

Beachburg TIMBER MART, a building supply store in the Ottawa Valley region of eastern Ontario, has new owners. Run by the Lumax family since it was founded 55 years ago by the late Russell Lumax, the store has transitioned to dealer-owners Matt and Carrie Gagne, both 33, a local couple with a family of four.

Canac will invest $20 million to open a 40,000-square-foot store in Sorel-Tracy, Que., Le Journal de Montréal reports. An August groundbreaking is planned for the new outlet, with a timeline to open next spring. Canac made it known in March that Sorel-Tracy would be the site of its 34th store. The retailer is also set to open a fulfilment centre on Quebec City’s south shore in September, which will position it to make deliveries to the region with fewer bridge crossings.

EPLS Home Hardware Building Centre in Arviat, Nunavut, has moved into a new home thanks to a financing partnership with Royal Bank of Canada. CEO Ryan St. John’s father Don founded the store some 50 years ago, facilitating the provision of building supplies to the fly-in community.

The Home Depot has made some staff cuts, according to 11alive.com, an Atlanta news service. “Due to changes in our business, we eliminated a very small number of non-store roles,” the retailer said in a statement.

Zak’s Home Hardware in Saskatoon celebrated its grand opening at the end of May. Dealer-owner Wyatt Zacharias purchased the former Reid’s Home Hardware, which dates to 1953, earlier this year.

Michelle Gerard and Allen Chen, dealer-owners of Neepawa Home Hardware Building Centre, celebrated the ribbon-cutting of their new store in Neepawa, Man., on May 24, the Brandon Sun reports. The 24,000-square-foot store includes 15,000 square feet of retail space as well as a drive-through and a warehouse.

IKEA Canada has launched “Kreativ,” an AI-generated experience intended to enable customers “to fully integrate design solutions and visualize their own living spaces.” IKEA Kreativ uses 3D mixed-reality technologies to help customers visualize how home furnishings will look and function in their homes. They can browse and preview IKEA products in 3D showrooms. The core technology was developed by Silicon Valley AI company Geomagical Labs, which IKEA Retail acquired in 2020.

SUPPLIER NEWS

EAB received the Washington State Recycling Association’s 2023 Recycler of the Year Award for business. The award was presented at WRSA’s 43rd Annual Conference and Trade Show at the Yakima Convention Center in Yakima, Wash. The WRSA is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to supporting waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting in the state.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

The annualized pace of housing starts declined 23 percent in May to 202,494 units, from 261,357 units in April. The rate of urban starts fell 24 percent, with 182,842 units recorded in May. The Vancouver (-45 percent), Toronto (-28 percent), and Montreal (-35 percent) areas all recorded declines. All three recorded increases in single-detached starts that were offset by large decreases in multi-unit starts. (CMHC)

U.S. housing starts logged a 21.7 percent surge in May. That followed a 2.9 percent decrease in April. Building permits for the month were up 5.2 percent. (U.S. Commerce Dept.)

U.S. retail sales rose unexpectedly in May. Sales were up by 0.3 percent last month following a 0.4 percent increase in April. LBM and garden categories logged an increase of 2.2 percent, attributed to home renovations. (U.S. Commerce Dept.)

Hardlines will be part of a luxury cruise for Canadians in tandem with next year’s International Hardware Fair in Cologne, Germany. In partnership with the Building Supply Industry Association of British Columbia, we’re organizing a business trip to Cologne to attend the largest hardware show in the world, followed by an industry tour of the Rhine River on our own dedicated ship. The seven-day trip begins March 6, 2024. Space is limited and we need to confirm enough people to make the trip work by the end of June, so please contact Thomas Foreman, president of the BSIA of B.C., as soon as possible to guarantee your spot!

RONA inc. announced last week that it had made major changes within the organization to “simplify its organizational structure to strengthen its position on the market and be more efficient.” That included the elimination of 500 positions within the RONA network across Canada and the naming of a new CEO.

“In light of the current economic downturn, RONA, like other organizations that recently announced restructurings, needed to adapt to reflect new market realities,” says the release RONA sent out last week. “The organization firmly believes that its transition plan aimed at positioning RONA as the leader of the Canadian home improvement industry will support its viability and benefit stakeholders in the long run.”

RONA has clarified with Hardlines that the positions that were eliminated included 300 corporate positions throughout the country—200 of them at the Boucherville head office. The balance of the cuts are from RONA offices, DCs, and stores across the country. The positions affected range from upper management, including some merchants, down to front-line workers in the DCs and in the stores.

The company also affirmed that its head office in Boucherville, on the South Shore of Montreal, will remain in place.

At the same time, Andrew Iacobucci has been appointed CEO. Prior to joining RONA, he was EVP and chief commercial officer at US Foods, a food distribution company based in Rosemont, Ill. Before that, he spent 10 years at Loblaw Cos. Garry Senecal, RONA’s interim CEO, will stay on until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition.

Earlier this year, Lowe’s Cos. completed the sale of its Canadian business, consisting of Lowe’s, RONA, and Réno-Dépôt-bannered stores, to Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm based in New York. Cutting costs outright can be a trademark of takeovers by private equity. However, when asked if the cuts reflected directives from RONA’s new owners, a spokesperson from RONA clarified to Hardlines that the decision came from RONA’s senior leadership team and was in response to current economic factors. RONA is not the only company facing these realities: Bell recently cut 1,300 jobs, closed or sold off nine radio stations, and eliminated most of its remaining international bureaus.

Concerning the job cuts, RONA’s statement said: “Decisions like these are never taken lightly as they impact the organization’s employees and their families. Employees affected by this change will be supported throughout this transition.”

BMR’s union with European buying group will enhance its overseas sourcing

BMR Group, the Boucherville, Que.-based buying group and wholesaler, has joined a major European buying organization. As part of the A.R.E.N.A. Alliance, BMR becomes that group’s Canadian partner.

A.R.E.N.A. is an international alliance of hardware and home improvement retailers (called DIY stores in Europe). The group is focused on sourcing, negotiation, and quality benchmarks for hardware, garden, and home improvement products. It maintains offices in Paris, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh City, Warsaw, and New Delhi.

Some of Europe’s leading independent DIY retailers make up the A.R.E.N.A. alliance: Groupement Les Mousquetaires (France), hagebau (Germany), Jumbo (Switzerland), Gruppo Bricofer (Italy), Dedeman (Romania), Pevex (Croatia), Maxeda DIY Group (Benelux countries), and now BMR Group in Canada. Collectively, the eight retail companies, which largely represent groups of independent dealers like BMR, account for more than 15.5 billion euros ($22.4 billion) in sales, and are located in 12 European countries plus Canada.

BMR had been in negotiations with A.R.E.N.A. for two years before joining. For the Canadian buying group and wholesaler, the deal responds to the direction in which many of the industry’s players are headed. “When we look at the overall market, we see the biggest players getting bigger,” says Charles Grégoire-Béliveau, vice-president of merchandising at BMR Group. The alliance with A.R.E.N.A. helps level the playing field. “We were looking at joining something bigger so we can compete better in certain categories.”

Grégoire-Béliveau points out that the membership in A.R.E.N.A. will not mean BMR is going to have direct negotiations with the European offices of any of its domestic vendors—though he anticipates picking up important merchandising and packaging ideas. Rather, BMR will continue to support its relationship with ILDC, which works with the Spancan hardware buying group in this country.

The deal will be for products that A.R.E.N.A. sources overseas, such as outdoor living products, which are almost entirely manufactured in the Far East, often for private labels. “So we’ve found a good fit with buying better and sharing best practices among the other dealers,” Grégoire-Béliveau adds. The result, he says, will be broader assortments, better prices, and improved margins. “It’s good news for the dealers.”

Retail experts to share big insights at this year’s Hardlines Conference

Understanding the direction of retail and the patterns of consumer behaviour are key benchmarks for any retail owner or manager who wants to stay current in today’s competitive marketplace. And there’s no better place to tap the industry’s best thought leaders than at the Hardlines Conference.

This year’s Hardlines Conference will feature some of the brightest minds in retail today. And they’ll share their stories and insights at the conference’s new location in Whistler, B.C., on Oct. 17 and 18. The conference is being held in conjunction with the Building Supply Industry Association of British Columbia. 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 directly.)

Dan Tratensek, COO and publisher at the North American Hardware and Paint Association, is a familiar face to conference delegates. He’ll bring the latest research on what NHPA members are facing on the frontlines. Another conference regular, Peter Norman, vice-president and chief economist at the Altus Group, will bring his trademark assessment of housing and economic factors to the Hardlines Conference audience, making sense of interest rates and inflation and consumer behaviours.

A big hit at last year’s conference was a newcomer, Zaida Fazlic, vice-president, people and culture, at Taiga Building Products. Fazlic (shown here) has her own profound passion for the importance of leadership in an organization, and the ways that the demands of leadership have changed during Covid. Her thoughtful and personal insights are not to be missed.

These are just a few of the amazing thought leaders who will be featured at the 27th annual Hardlines Conference. For our complete lineup of presenters, click here.

(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!)

Saint-Gobain has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Building Products of Canada Corp., the privately owned roofing manufacturer. The deal is worth $1.33 billion in cash. BP Canada, with operations in Montreal, Edmonton, and in Pont-Rouge, Que., had EBITDA of $111 million in 2022.

Saint-Gobain already owns CertainTeed, which has a significant roofing division of its own, in North America. Last year, Saint-Gobain made another major acquisition here with the purchase of siding manufacturer Kaycan.

BP Canada is a major producer of asphalt shingle roofing in Canada. It also supplies other wood fibre insulation panels and acoustic panels. The company had its start when it was incorporated as Building Products Ltd. in 1925, the result of a merger of two companies. Bird and Son was founded in 1795 and built what was to become BP’s Pont-Rouge fibreboard plant in 1905. Ruberoid Co. installed a roofing plant in LaSalle, Que., one year later. BP Canada began production in the West when it built a mill in Edmonton in 1951.

In 1964, the company was acquired by Imperial Oil, then purchased again in 1987 by the plumbing products distributor, Emco. In 2003, it established production in St-Joliette, Que.; three years later, Emco was acquired by private equity.

Saint-Gobain is based in France, just outside of Paris. Considered the largest building products company in the world, it has about 168,000 employees in 75 countries, and 2022 sales totaled €51.2 billion ($73.7 billion). This latest acquisition “will reinforce its leadership in light and sustainable construction products in the Canadian market,” according to a release. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2023.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the latest edition of Hardlines Dealer News hit inboxes last week? In this issue, we offer some forecasts for how 2023 is going for dealers, examine one Home Hardware dealer’s “love/hate relationship” with e-commerce, and provide a report on UFA’s support of its farm customers. Hardlines Dealer News is monthly and it’s free: click here to subscribe now!

RETAILER NEWS

Atlantic Canada has experienced its worst wildfires season in years. Kent Building Supplies, which has 49 stores in the region, will match every dollar contributed to the Canadian Red Cross Nova Scotia & Atlantic Canada Fires Appeal. The governments of Canada and Nova Scotia are also matching those donations.

Federated Co-operatives Ltd. is investing $1 million in 15 community projects across western Canada through its Community Spaces program. Since 2015, Co-op Community Spaces has provided $12.5 million to 175 projects in three categories: recreation, environmental conservation, and urban agriculture. This year’s projects include playgrounds in Lloydminster and Englefeld, Sask., and West Kelowna, B.C.; and outdoor trails in Hornby Island, B.C., and Ste. Rose, Man.

Aluminium B. Bouchard is the latest dealer to join TIMBER MART. Located in the Greater Montreal Area, the building materials business is owned by Serge Bouchard. Aluminium B. Bouchard encompasses three buildings—a retail store and two LBM storage buildings—which total 13,200 square feet. It employs a team of almost 60 and has been serving the communities of Laval, Montreal, and the surrounding areas since 1976.

Home Depot held its annual Investor and Analyst Conference last week to update its outlook for 2023. The retailer expects sales and comps to decline between two and five percent from fiscal 2022. It further anticipates a diluted earnings-per-share decline of between seven and 13 percent.

Hipperson Home Hardware in Nelson, B.C., is celebrating its 100th anniversary throughout June. Founded by Bill and Becky Hipperson in 1923, Hipperson Hardware joined the Home Hardware banner in 1981. It has passed through five generations and is now operated by dealer-owner Courtney Dooley and her siblings, Brittany Winje and Linden Horswill.

Ace Hardware of Oak Brook, Ill., has acquired a portfolio of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical home services companies from Grove Mountain, an Atlanta-based private equity firm, reports Franchise Times. The 12 firms operate under the Unique Indoor Comfort brand, a company headquartered in King of Prussia, Penn.

Dollarama reported higher first-quarter sales and earnings as inflation pressures continue to drive traffic to discount retailers. The Montreal-based company’s net earnings for the quarter rose to $179.9 million, from $145.5 million a year earlier. Overall sales rose by 20.7 percent to $1.29 billion, while comp sales were up 17 percent.

SUPPLIER NEWS

Techniseal is underscoring the durability of its products, while appealing to commuter frustration about ongoing construction that ties up traffic, in a new publicity campaign. In three billboards, near Montreal’s Jacques-Cartier bridge and Lafontaine tunnel, and on Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, the manufacturer invokes its motto “Ça dure longtemps”, or “Built to last.” In a pledge that its products will last longer than major construction projects in the respective areas, Techniseal boasts “See you after the work in the tunnel” in Montreal and “See you when the Eglinton LRT is done” in Toronto.

Aliaxis, parent company of Ipex in North America, announced it has registered in Hydro-Québec’s Renewable Energy Certificates Pilot Project. The company intends to seek certificates covering 100 percent renewable electricity consumption for all its Quebec sites for the year 2023.

Jayne Hounslow, age eight, was tragically killed in a hit-and-run incident in Burlington, Ont., on May 3. She was the daughter of Sarah Hounslow, president of Burlington Merchandising & Fixtures, well known to many in the industry, and Sarah’s husband, Nathan. Jayne was also the granddaughter of Rob Wilbrink, former retail executive and the founder of BMF. The Hounslow family have set up an endowment fund in memory of their daughter. It will help remove financial barriers for children wanting to participate in sports, music, and summer camps. To make a contribution, please click this link: Jayne’s Fund.

After posting gains of 15.5 percent in 2020 and 11.3 percent in 2021, the retail home improvement industry in Canada plateaued in 2022. This was to be expected. Those two years under Covid were a great ride for the majority of dealers in the country.

However, the consumer frenzy for hardware and building supply products was dampened in the past year by multiple interest rate increases and declining commodity prices. Plus, the opening up of other places for customers to spend their money, as pandemic restrictions lifted, further slowed sales.

Hardlines estimates the industry grew 4.6 percent in 2022 to $61.14 billion, based on analysis of the growth by the large players, feedback from independent dealers through our annual Business Conditions Survey, and careful analysis of economic conditions and retail growth figures from StatCan. The data will be used in the 2023 Hardlines Retail Report, available in July.

Even after three pandemic years from 2020 to 2022, in which the industry grew 34.4 percent, the industry still managed last year to grow 4.6 percent. However, the Consumer Price Index was up nationally 6.8 percent in 2022, so the industry experienced a 2.2 percent decline in real terms, after inflation.

In 2019, pre-Covid, Hardlines reported an industry size of $45.5 billion. Last year’s gain was a tremendous feat, especially in a year in which commodity prices tumbled. The industry is still being impacted by commodity price declines and this will likely continue throughout the rest of this year.

(The final figures on the size and growth of the Canadian retail home improvement industry will be featured in our 2023 Hardlines Retail Report. This massive report, in a handy PowerPoint format, will be available in July. Click here for more details on this important body of research and to pre-order yours. As a Hardlines Premium Member-Subscriber, you’ll save over $400 on the price!)

Calgary’s Star Building Materials plans massive expansion

Star Building Materials, headquartered in Calgary, has unveiled an ambitious expansion plan that will greatly increase its output and capacity. The $53 million investment is expected to double the dealer’s production of trusses, engineered wood products, prefabricated wall panels, and interior finishing production. It will also add more than 140 new jobs.

Star Building Materials is a division of Qualico, a vertically integrated and fully diversified real estate and commercial construction company. Star has locations in Calgary and Winnipeg as well as a components division in Edmonton that supplies engineered wood products and trusses. It is also a member of Independent Lumber Dealers Co-operative.

Qualico Properties was instrumental in facilitating the acquisition of an 18-acre parcel of land adjacent to the company’s existing 12-acre facility in Balzac, Alta., in the Calgary Metropolitan Region. The expansion program is expected to help alleviate some of the stresses on the construction industry post-Covid as it confronts ongoing labour and material shortages.

“Through the past couple of years, we’ve learned how vital the supply chain is to the construction industry and we feel this expansion will add solutions to these challenges for years to come,” Ken Crockett (shown here), vice-president of Star Building Materials, told Hardlines. “Using new technologies, added automation, and expanding our production capacities will certainly help to alleviate these challenges.”

He says the expansion will double the capacity of Star’s existing operations and represents an overall investment in people, technology, automation, and the building industry.

The planned expansion follows another investment in growth in late 2019, when Star tripled the size of its distribution yard. That involved relocating from the Alyth Road operations site to its new North Star location near Stoney Trail.

Work on the expansion will begin in the fall and the site should be fully operational in late 2024 or early 2025. It will consist of three new buildings for production, adding to the existing two at the Balzac location. The company’s current operations in its Alyth yard located just off Deerfoot Trail will be consolidated at the facility in Balzac.

“Our plan is to have zero disruptions in service to all our clients throughout this process. Customer service is what has built our business and this expansion will only improve our customers’ experience with Star Building Materials.” Crockett adds.

RONA affiliate dealers open first urban store in the West

Amidst all the changes at RONA inc., with new ownership (Sycamore Partners) and a new boss (former Loblaw exec Garry Senecal), the company continues to develop its retail footprint.

One format that has been growing quietly is RONA’s urban store. It’s smaller than RONA’s building centres or big boxes, and the stores are strategically located in urban settings to better serve the surrounding communities. They can be in a shopping centre or in a downtown area.

With their small retail footprint, they also carry a reduced selection of building materials, but with no lumber yard. The stores also offer a small selection of appliances, supported by online ordering.

“In essence, regular RONA hardware stores are in every market throughout Canada, while an urban RONA store is one in the heart of a major city only,” says a spokesperson from RONA inc. A few of the urban stores already exist in Ontario and Quebec—RONA Bélanger in Montreal’s east-end neighborhood of Rosemont is one example.

Now, the retailer has established its first urban format store in western Canada. Two former RONA employees, Al Tsuchiya and Michael Trentalance (shown here), now the owners of the T&T Hardware Group, have joined RONA’s affiliated dealer network, with their store, RONA Walnut Grove in Langley B.C. The 5,500-square-foot location is getting a 2,200-square-foot expansion to offer up to 650 new SKUs of select building materials and plumbing products.

‘‘With the uniqueness of our distribution network and corporate stores within the Canadian markets, we can support this type of store better than anyone in our industry,” says Philippe Element, vice-president, RONA dealer sales and support.

On Gary Rasor’s 80th birthday, his children asked him to retire because there was no financial need for him to work. Rasor refused and told his children that he loved working at Home Depot, where he trained young employees and enjoyed interacting with customers.

Rasor continued to work for more than two years at The Home Depot in Hillsborough, N.C., until he was confronted by a man stealing three pressure washers last October. The man violently pushed Rancor, who crashed to the floor and was taken to the hospital—where he died from his injuries a few days after turning 83.

“He was just going to ask him for a receipt,” Rasor’s son Jeff said of his father and the man who attacked him.

The elder Rasor was attacked in the course of what authorities call organized retail crime—the large-scale theft of high-value items, which are then illegally resold. In an interview airing tonight on Nightline, Jeff Rasor told ABC News’ Erielle Reshef that he wants authorities to crack down on the growing phenomenon.

“There has to be consequences in my mind, and the consequences have to fit the crime,” he said. “I can’t imagine that any piece of equipment in Home Depot is worth a life—and so when you find out it’s $837, it’s just pretty bad.”

Five months after Gary Rasor’s death, another Home Depot employee was killed after confronting a shoplifter in a California store. Blake Mohs, a 26-year-old loss prevention employee, was shot in the chest while trying to stop a theft at a Home Depot in April. Two people have been arrested on murder charges in the case.

The two deaths come as law enforcement officials and advocates warn of an increase in violent and brazen acts during the commission of organized retail crimes. According to a report released by the National Retail Federation in the U.S., stores and retailers reported that the number of organized retail crime incidents increased by an average of 26.5 percent between 2020 and 2021.

More recently, a Florida man has been arrested on charges of being part of an organized theft ring that targeted Home Depot stores throughout Florida. The group would make fraudulent returns of stolen goods. He is allegedly responsible for a loss of $60,000 at stores in Orlando and Miami.

“It’s growing double-digit year over year,” Scott Glenn, Home Depot’s vice-president of asset protection, told ABC News. “We don’t have enough resources to handle it, [so] we have to prioritize the biggest impacts.”

Tony Cioffi, former president of Lowe’s Canada until March of this year—shortly after Sycamore Partners, a New York City-based private equity firm took over—has been appointed VP finance at Belron Inc. in Montreal. Belron is a giant automotive glass replacement firm with 32,000 employees in 34 countries. Its brands include Apple Auto Glass, Speedy Glass, and Lebeau. Cioffi was replaced as head of RONA inc. (formerly Lowe’s Canada) by Garry Senecal, a former Loblaw executive, who serves as RONA’s interim CEO.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the latest episode of our Hardlines podcast series features a great conversation with the current owners of BMR Paulin Moisan in Saint-Raymond, Que., cousins Mathieu Moisan and Marianne Moisan? The grandchildren of the store’s founders, they are also winners of our Young Retailer of the Year Award and have a great story to tell. But wait. It’s in French! Yup, this is our first podcast entirely in French, so ecoutez ici!

RETAILER NEWS

Home Hardware Stores Ltd. has signed a three-year extension as the official home improvement retailer of the Toronto Blue Jays. Under the new partnership, the Rogers Centre in Toronto will feature permanent signage promoting Home’s BeautiTone paint brand as the official paint of the Blue Jays. The retailer has been supporting the baseball team since 2005.

The A.R.E.N.A. Alliance has added BMR Group as its Canadian partner for the supply of renovation and home equipment products. A.R.E.N.A. is dedicated to sourcing and negotiation for DIY, garden, and home improvement products. BMR is its eighth national partner, and the first outside Europe.

Red Deer-based Peavey Industries has acquired its freight partner, Guy’s Freightways. The company is a logistics and transport company and a long-term partner of Peavey. Established in 1975 by Bernie Schwartz, Guy’s Freightways began as a single-truck operation delivering to six Peavey Mart stores. Now headed by Todd Schwartz, the company consists of 16 full-time trucks and 43 trailers. As part of Peavey Industries, it will continue to service Peavey’s retail network across Canada.

Home Depot Canada, through its charitable arm, the Home Depot Canada Foundation, has kicked off its Spring Orange Door Project. Until June 25, the fundraising drive will raise money online and through Home Depot stores across Canada on behalf of 126 local charities supporting youth within the local communities. The Home Depot Canada Foundation is committed to preventing and ending youth homelessness in Canada.

Calgary’s Mountain View Building Materials Ltd. has joined Sexton Group. Tracy Seibert and her late husband Doug founded Mountain View in early 2006. Today, the family business is owned and operated by their sons Joel and Brad, recently joined by a third partner, Sheila Carr.

The RONA Foundation, RONA inc.’s philanthropic arm, has contributed over $1 million to Opération Enfant Soleil and Children’s Miracle Network. In Quebec, RONA was once again the official materials supplier for the Maison Enfant Soleil, designed by Bonneville Homes. With the help of 14 suppliers and a corporate contribution, the network sponsorship was valued at $129,645.

Liesemer Home Hardware in Mildmay, Ont., celebrates its 150th anniversary from June 15 to 17. Founded in 1873 by Conrad Liesemer, the hardware store has been family-owned and operated for five generations. It was among the first stores to join Home Hardware back in 1964. The original building with its hardwood floors continues to serve the business after 150 years.

Princess Auto, the Winnipeg-based hardware and automotive products retailer, has opened its 70th location. The newest store is in Abbotsford, B.C. and marks its seventh location in British Columbia.

SUPPLIER NEWS

Taiga Building Products of Burnaby, B.C., has donated $20,000 to the Red Cross to support relief efforts after the recent wildfires in Alberta. “Taiga stands in solidarity with our customers, suppliers, and families directly affected by these devastating forest fires,” said COO Michael Sivucha.

Aliaxis, parent company of Ipex in North America, announced it has registered in Hydro-Québec’s Renewable Energy Certificates Pilot Project. The company intends to seek certificates covering 100 percent renewable electricity consumption for all its Quebec sites for the year 2023.

The value of building permits dropped 18.8 percent to $9.6 billion in April, the lowest level since December 2020. Residential permits declined 6.1 percent to $6.1 billion, the second consecutive monthly drop. Declines were posted for both the single-family and multi-dwelling components. However, much of that decline came from Ontario, down 10.5 percent. Elsewhere, British Columbia was up 2.6 percent and the value of building intentions in Saskatchewan was up a healthy 45.0 percent. Non-residential permits were down 34.6 percent following the strongest month on record in March. (StatCan)

NOTED

To show its support for its trade customers, Quebec retailer Canac, in partnership with its creative agency LG2, has launched an ad campaign that offers a fashion fix for plumbers when they bend and crouch to fix the pipes. With tongue firmly in cheek, the ad presents a new style of jeans that feature a flap to cover the infamous “plumber’s crack.” It’s very funny!

The Alberta forest fires have had a big impact on our industry, especially the forest products companies involved in logging and milling. One such firm is Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd., which had to take emergency measures at three of its worker communities, in Drayton Valley, Edson, and Grande Prairie, Alta.

When multiple wildfires broke out at the beginning of May, the company completely evacuated about 300 employees plus their families from Drayton Valley and Edson. These employees were among an estimated 16,000 people in the two towns, most of whom were evacuated under an emergency order issued on May 4. By that time, there were 89 active wildfires in the province.

In Drayton Valley, the fires breached the perimeter of town, said David Graham, president of Weyerhaeuser’s Canadian subsidiary. “Our top priority was in protecting our people and the communities.” Houses were destroyed in both Drayton Valley and Edson. Grande Prairie, meanwhile, was threatened by multiple active wildfires during this time—although it was not under an evacuation order.

A core group of Weyerhaeuser employees stayed behind to help make the community safer, “under the protection and orders of the local authorities in command,” Graham told Hardlines. They engaged in creating more firebreaks, clearing land, and supporting the first responder crews.

At time of writing, the citizens of these towns are back home, the fires around these areas are no longer an immediate danger—rain the week before last helped—and the communities are safe again. But Graham is not breathing easier yet. “Fires in our timberlands are being monitored and some are still out of control,” he said.

“Our business is throughout North America. We’ve got fires, hurricanes, floods. We have to respond with vigour. It’s part of what we do. This [the successful evacuations] was a good news story but it’s going to be a long summer.”

With higher Q1 inventory, Canadian Tire waits out Q2 uncertainty

After a tough first quarter, where comp sales for its Canadian Tire stores dropped 4.8 percent, Canadian Tire Corp. moved into the second quarter with slightly better results. By the end of April, those same-store sales were up three percent, even though higher Q1 inventory levels had yet to ease. And given the fluctuations in weather through the spring, reducing inventory levels remained a challenge.

Weather-related factors were responsible for the vast majority of the sales decline, with sales of items like toboggans, heaters, humidifiers, and snow blowers down in the quarter.

Greg Hicks, president and CEO of Canadian Tire Corp., told analysts on the company’s first-quarter earnings call that there have been some high points, including an uptick in Alberta and elsewhere on the Prairies. But between the weather and the slowdown in consumer confidence, Hicks and his team expected a turnaround in Q2 could be elusive.

“Q1 was such a complex quarter to unpack, with all of the weather impacts, and then we do see some consumer softening signals as well, so I think once we get through Q2, we’ll be in much better shape to kind of really understand the consumer landscape,” he said.

One response has been to increase promotional activity, particularly in discretionary categories, which have softened in comparison to essential lines. TJ Flood, president of Canadian Tire Retail, noted that the company was still “heavy on the spring-summer side of inventory”—a concern, he said, shared by other retailers selling seasonal products, “so I think we are going to expect some promotional activity to heat up here.”

He echoed Hicks’s concern that the company’s outlook will be clearer as products move through the system in the spring-summer season. “Once we get through Q2, we’ll probably have a better ability to tease out weather versus consumer sentiment at this point.”

While Canadian Tire’s distribution centres face excess inventory, with the rate of growth in Q1 down from the previous quarter, a lot of the higher cost of that inventory is due to inflation, said Flood. “Forty percent of that on the corporate side of things can be attributed to inflation, so we’re heading in the right direction in terms of the rate of growth and we’re going to be continuing to manage our inventory very surgically.”

On the dealer side, he notes, the situation is even more positive, as “they’re only up slightly [on] year-over-year in inventory, and that’s entirely attributable to inflation, so they’re in much cleaner shape.”

Home Depot in the U.S. now selling tiny homes online and through its stores

Houses that can be erected in as short a time as one day are being sold by Home Depot. The homes, as small as 140 square feet in size (for the “Sedona” model), are sold without extras like windows. Home Depot offers a link to a preferred partner that will build the house for the customer.

The tiny home trend is catching on in Canadian cities as a solution for both decreased housing affordability and increasing density. For example, Ontario has provincial regulations that allow the development of smaller-footprint residences with a minimum of 188 square feet in lanes, backyards, and on cottage properties. There are even several tiny home communities springing up throughout the province.

However, the tiny homes are not available at Home Depot stores in Canada, nor can they be purchased through Homedepot.ca. In the U.S., the tiny home trend offers an alternative to the affordable mobile or trailer home option.

While the price includes delivery, the package consists only of the steel structure and the necessary components to assemble it. It doesn’t include windows, doors, floors, walls, or siding. But Home Depot has its own construction and build team, which helps to determine the materials necessary to build each project, including wiring and plumbing.

In addition, all orders are checked by a certified engineer to ensure each complies with the purchaser’s local building codes. The services allow customers to work with the retailer directly to customize and adapt their tiny home package.

Hudson’s Bay Co. intends to keep expanding its Zellers brand across Canada—through both bricks and mortar and online presences. That will include increasing the store-within-a-store’s footprint in cities across the country. The retailer has significant liquidity to enhance its offerings and has raised additional capital to support that investment.

Now, Zellers is setting its sights on additional locations. The Zellers rebirth started as a series of pop-up boutiques within Hudson’s Bay stores—and more are to come. A pop-up Zellers section will launch this month at The Bay’s flagship Queen Street store in Toronto. An additional 20 pop-ups are expected to open in August.

The pop-ups will effectively measure customer response in each market to determine the best fits for the Zellers store experience. “We have always said that we will listen to Canadians, and they will tell us where to grow,” says HBC president Sophia Hwang-Judiesch. “With these pop-ups, our expansion strategy will be fueled by the interest and feedback from our customers across the country.”

The department store is a retail format that has had difficulty reinventing itself in the e-commerce age. Nor has Covid been kind to the all-in-one retail format. Yet discount mass merchants and dollar stores have flourished during the pandemic. For Hudson’s Bay, reviving the Zellers brand gives the retailer a conduit for low-priced assortments that could well be a strategy to compete with the discounters.

Zellers’ price philosophy is built on everyday low prices for product assortments that are built on three pillars, says the company: quality, design, and value. Those assortments cross a range of key lifestyle categories, including kitchen and bath, accent furniture and home décor, organization and storage, baby and kids’ toys and apparel, pets, and clothing basics.

HBC, the holding company whose holdings include Hudson’s Bay and Zellers, as well as Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th, has raised $240 million of additional liquidity to further invest in and grow its operating businesses. The company says it sees “an immense opportunity for growth in its retail markets,” especially as other retailers exit the Canadian market.

IKEA veteran Selwyn Crittendon will take over as CEO and chief sustainability officer of IKEA Canada, effective Aug. 1. Previously country business development and transformation manager at IKEA U.S., he has been with the retailer for more than 20 years, starting out as customer service manager at a Washington, D.C.-area store. In the top job at IKEA Canada, he will oversee its continued efforts to expand its omnichannel strategy.

Executive recruiter DMC Recruitment has promoted Karine Gagnon to the role of manager of lumber and building materials recruitment. She will oversee the development of the team of LBM recruiters. Gagnon was recently named Recruiter of the Year for Quebec by the Association of Canadian Search, Employment, and Staffing Services (ACSESS).

 

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that Hardlines will be part of a luxury cruise for Canadians in tandem with next year’s International Hardware Fair in Cologne, Germany? In partnership with the Building Supply Industry Association of British Columbia, we’re organizing a business trip to Cologne to attend the largest hardware show in the world, followed by an industry tour of the Rhine River on our own dedicated ship. The seven-day trip begins March 6, 2024. Space is limited and we need to confirm enough people to make the trip work by the end of June, so please contact Thomas Foreman, president of the BSIA of B.C., as soon as possible to guarantee your spot!

RETAILER NEWS

Kingdon TIMBER MART in central Ontario held a grand opening for its store in Lakefield, about 20 minutes outside Peterborough. The 50,000-square-foot store replaces an older site nearby and the parking lot had lots of activities for customers and their families. Local food vendors served up treats, while other activities included chainsaw sculpture, product demonstrations, and axe-throwing contests.

BMR Group last week formally launched the BMR Amqui hardware store, which has been under the banner for almost a year. The hardware store was acquired in 2022 by BMR member Unoria Cooperative, owner of a network of 13 hardware stores in the Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie regions.

TIMBER MART has named the four finalists eligible to win grants for community projects through its Local Leaders Initiative. Dealers can nominate individuals who show leadership and make a positive impact through projects, programs, or initiatives in their communities. Each finalist wins $8,000 for a cause of their choice and the winner, to be announced July 10, will get an additional $10,000 for the cause of their choosing. The finalists are: Frank King of Charlottetown, P.E.I.; Pierre Côté of Sherbrooke, Que.; Karen Watson of Havelock, Ont.; and Joy Neufeld of Steinbach, Man.

Al Tsuchyia and Michael Trentalance, owners of the T & T Hardware Group, have joined RONA’s affiliated dealer network. The pair are former RONA employees. They have announced a 2,200-square-foot expansion of their hardware store, located in a shopping centre in Walnut Grove, B.C. It’s RONA’s first urban store in western Canada.

Retailers across Canada gathered last week in Toronto for the Excellence in Retailing Awards. They were presented during a gala dinner at the end of day one of the Retail Council of Canada’s conference, STORE23. Notable winners were: Canadian Tire Corp. for Environmental Leadership and for In-Store Experience & Design; Giant Tiger Stores for Philanthropic Leadership; Calgary Co-op for Philanthropic Leadership; and Staples Canada for Talent Development. The winner of the RCC’s Award of Distinction went to Greg Hicks, president and CEO of Canadian Tire Corp.

Matériaux Pont-Masson has marked the grand opening of its ninth store, in Val-Morin, Que. The new outlet includes a 13,000-square-foot sales area and a covered warehouse area of 30,000 square feet. The store will offer a range of dedicated services for pro customers, including extended contractor hours and financing.

Giant Tiger will hold a grand opening for its newest location on June 10 in Huntsville, Ont. The 18,600-square-foot store is located at 70 King William St. in the Central Ontario community.

SUPPLIER NEWS

Barbecue maker Napoleon is commissioning newly expanded warehouse operations in Crittenden, Ky. Driven by strong demand in the U.S. market, the added warehouse investment enables better fulfillment and customer service to Napoleon’s customers there, says the company, and marks the beginning of a larger U.S. supply network expansion. In addition, Napoleon was awarded for the 11th consecutive year as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies by financial consulting firm Deloitte. The annual review recognizes Canadian-owned businesses for their strength in strategy, commitment, capability, financial performance, and leading practices in ESG.

Quebec kitchen and bathroom cabinet maker Ébénisterie St-Urbain (EBSU) is facing the threat of bankruptcy, Le Journal de Montréal reports, thanks to its 2021 acquisition of Woodlore. At the time of the deal, Ontario-based Woodlore concealed from EBSU that it was being sued for breach of contract by a customer accounting for 40 percent of its sales. It lost that customer three months after the acquisition. Compounding EBSU’s woes, RONA, BMR, and Patrick Morin have all reduced their orders from the manufacturer. A RONA spokesperson however told Le Journal that fluctuations in orders are normal and not attributable to EBSU’s situation and RONA’s current order volume with EBSU remains very high.

Ryobi Tools has launched a new merchandising concept at the Home Depot store in Barrie, Ont. The store-within-a-store concept, called the Ryobi Power Centre, has been designed to offer a wide range of power tools, power tool accessories, and outdoor power equipment in an immersive setting to encourage deeper engagement with customers. The concept offers information and education, interactive video displays, and live interactive demos, as well as exclusive in-store events every weekend.

OVERHEARD…

“Prices are up the most in 40 years. So I don’t expect people to be happy about that. At the same time, I think there’s a false narrative out there being propagated that grocers or retailers are taking advantage of the situation, which is completely untrue.” —Michael Medline, president and CEO of Empire Co., whose holdings include the Sobeys grocery chain. He was interviewed in the latest edition of ROB Magazine.

Forecasts by the leading public hardware and home improvement retailers have already sent a message that 2023 is going to be a slow year. Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Canadian Tire all expect sales to dip by as much as five percent. (See last week’s issue for the full story. —your helpful Editor)

The expectations of independent dealers across Canada indicate they are facing the same concerns.

Hardlines surveyed hardware and home improvement dealers earlier this spring and found that most are facing flat sales for 2023. The average for all dealers that responded is -0.7 percent. There were some highs—a few respondents in Ontario expect five or even 10 percent gains this year, and Saskatchewan dealers were most positive overall, on average expecting a two percent gain. In Nova Scotia, some dealers expect gains of seven, eight, and even 10 percent, despite their concerns about sourcing and product shortages.

However, most dealers in the survey anticipate zero growth in 2023. Dealers that expected a real drop in sales were typically forecasting a decline of 10 percent—and a few cited expected downturns of 20 and 25 percent. The dealers predicting the greatest anticipated losses are generally strong independents who had big gains in 2022, following a banner year for the entire industry in 2021. (None of the dealers can be named to respect the confidentiality of the survey.—your faithful fact-checking Editor)

In other words, dealers will have a hard time maintaining the momentum of the past three years. The slowdown began last year: after a strong first quarter, the industry saw sales drop off as interest rates and inflation sped up, coupled with falling LBM prices.

In fact, Hardlines has calculated a modest gain by the industry in 2022, but one that was still below the national inflation rate of 6.8 percent last year.

The flat forecast for the current year is not entirely bad news, then, but can instead be interpreted as a continued correction in the market. This cooling off can have a number of upsides, taking the pressure off hiring demands and easing the strain on the supply chain as product flow and pricing return to a new normal.

Under new owners, affiliate dealers will get a better deal, says RONA SVP

Without the leadership of Lowe’s Cos. in the U.S., the executive team at RONA inc. is wasting no time doing things their own way. The sale of the former Lowe’s Canada to a New York City-based private equity firm was finalized on Feb. 3.

Ads have become more humorous, the RONA brand is getting increased awareness, and the affiliate dealers are getting more attention. Hardlines reached out to Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux, senior vice-president, RONA affiliates, wholesale, and public affairs. “Lowe’s were great partners right across the board, but we’re very excited by what we’ve seen from our new owners, Sycamore Partners,” he says, “and it’s really resonating with the independent dealers.”

Out of a total of 445 stores, RONA has 333 RONA-bannered locations, of which about half are affiliate dealers. “The dealer RONA network is one of the growth vectors for the future. That’s our main theme here. We value the history that the dealer network has with this company.”

Asked about what that growth will look like, Lamoureux underlines three strategies. The company definitely wants to add more dealers and increase the number of independents flying the RONA banner. Lamoureux also wants to broaden the geographic reach of the dealer network. Its greatest concentration—outside of its home province of Quebec—is in British Columbia and Ontario.

And the opportunity for individual dealers that are already part of RONA is big, he adds, with support in place for those dealers to add stores or buy out competitors. “We want to be a partner in their growth, not only organically, but in terms of consolidating their markets.”

Will RONA focus mainly on larger building centres? Lamoureux says no. The company wants to recruit and develop every type of dealer from hardware stores to home centres and lumberyards. Each type of store represents a format that can position a retailer effectively to serve its local market.

“As RONA is getting back to its roots, it’s only natural that the independent dealers play a significant role in the company in the future.”

(Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux will be a keynote presenter at this year’s Hardlines Conference, Oct. 17 and 18 in Whistler, B.C. You’ll want to hear the latest about RONA’s plans for its affiliate dealers right from the source! So click here now to learn more and secure your spot at this incredible event!)

Despite lower Q1 results, Lowe’s makes healthy online sales gains

Lowe’s Cos., which reported first-quarter sales last week that were five percent below last year’s Q1, is feeling the pinch on big-ticket items now that the Covid-driven consumer frenzy for home improvements has abated.

The retailer posted Q1 earnings of $2.26 billion, down from $2.33 billion a year ago. Sales fell by more than five percent to $22.35 billion, compared to $23.66 billion in Q1 of 2022. Comp sales fell by 4.3 percent. The biggest drop was from DIY customers; Lowe’s contractor business was healthier with positive comps in some pro categories.

“Candidly, what we’re seeing is pressure across big-ticket discretionary purchases primarily,” Marvin Ellison, president and CEO of Lowe’s, said on a call with investors and journalists. “We’re seeing some pressure in small-ticket [items], but it’s more pronounced in big-ticket [items] and is almost exclusively discretionary in DIY.”

However, the company continues to make gains in its online sales, as part of its “Total Home” strategy. E-commerce sales were up six percent in the quarter, bringing the retailer’s online sales penetration to almost 10 percent of overall sales.

One of Lowe’s strategies to counter the new consumer thriftiness will be to introduce more private-label Lowe’s products, including a new line of closet organization products and an exclusive line of tintable paints formulated specifically for pros from Sherwin-Williams.

“Our private-brand strategy allows us to deliver value to DIY customers who are looking for high-quality, on-trend products at more affordable price points,” said Bill Boltz, Lowe’s executive vice-president for merchandising.

A brand new retail home furnishings and décor banner is coming to Canada, and it’s taking over at least 21 former Bed, Bath & Beyond locations after that chain entered bankruptcy protection. Putman Investments—already an operator of multiple retail brands—will launch a new retailer called rooms + spaces.

Putman Investments is an Ancaster, Ont.-based company that already owns Toys “R” Us, Sunrise Records, FYE (For Your Entertainment), HMV UK, and T. Kettle (formerly Davids Tea). Hardlines interviewed the 39-year-old investment firm’s founder, Doug Putman, and found him bullish on the future of—not just his rooms + spaces brand—but bricks and mortar retail in Canada in general.

Putman Investments is all family money, Putman said, with sales from the 25 companies it owns approaching $4 billion. In addition to its flagship retailers, the company owns distribution, manufacturing, and real estate. “We take no outside investment, so everything we buy, we own 100 percent.”

“They are just companies that are out of fashion, or not doing well, and they’re just kind of at the end of their life,” Putman said. “People say to me, why did you get into the distressed [retailer] business? The answer was simple, I didn’t have enough money to buy a good business!”

Putman’s first investment was troubled Sunrise Records, which he bought for not much money at all. Now he is a significant global player in the recorded music bricks-and-mortar space (HMV UK is a top 10 retail brand), confounding sceptics who thought that Spotify, iTunes, and other digital music vendors would drive his record shops out of business.

“They are unfashionable businesses, for sure, but they do fantastically well,” Putman says. “We hit it perfectly with vinyl… and with an explosion in pop culture products in general, whether it’s T-shirts or paraphernalia.”

Putman once said that he didn’t want to invest in anything that didn’t have “unlimited upside.” Does rooms + spaces have that upside? To Putman it does: “We’re starting with about 30 stores [Putman is in negotiation to take over more Bed Bath & Beyond leases beyond the already-announced 21 locations] in a market that’s billions of dollars, right? I think we’ve got this potential. Are we going to have a large market share in certain areas? No. But I think we can have a good share.”

Walmart Canada has made changes to its lineup of senior executives. Mohammed Abdool-Samad has joined as CFO. He was group CFO at Walmart’s Massmart business in South Africa. John Bayliss has been named chief administration officer. He was formerly an EVP. Michon Williams has been promoted to chief technology officer from the role of VP technology. Joe Schrauder has joined as VP, operations and chief of staff to the CEO. He is relocating to Canada from Walmart’s Bentonville, Ark., head office, where he was VP, international operations and realty for Walmart International.

DID YOU KNOW…?

… that the 2023 Hardlines Conference will take place Oct. 17 and 18 at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler Resort in Whistler, B.C.? The two-day program includes speakers from leading home improvement organizations such as RONA, Home Depot, Taiga Building Products, Federated Co-op, and Ace Canada. Hardlines Weekly Report subscribers can take advantage of a 20 percent discount on registration, while special pricing is available to dealers!

RETAILER NEWS

Gow’s Home Hardware in Bridgewater, N.S., held a celebration recently for its 175th anniversary. Dealer-owner Amanda Fancy accepted the Outstanding Retailer Award for Best Hardware Store at the 2017 Hardlines Conference. Since then, the store has moved to a new location and added furniture and appliances to its offerings. During the pandemic, the store’s annual sales exceeded $18 million.

A Castle dealer is planning the opening this spring of a new store on Prince Edward Island. Brudenell Building Centre in Montague is the latest expansion for long-time Castle member Mike James. James owns Spring Valley Building Centre in Kensington, near Summerside, and O’Leary Building Centre in O’Leary, on the west side of the island. His new partner is Adam Baird, who will serve as the store’s general manager.

SUPPLIER NEWS

The Retail Council of Canada will hold its flagship event, RCC Store23, on May 30 and 31 at the Toronto Congress Centre, near Pearson International Airport. Speakers include Retail Prophet founder Doug Stephens, Holt Renfrew CEO Sebastian Picardo, and Danyal Syed Ali, head of consumer and customer insights at IKEA Canada. (Check out the complete agenda here or click here to buy tickets.)

Doman Building Materials Group, the owner of CanWel Building Materials, reported a big decline in revenue in the first quarter compared to Q1 of 2022. Revenues were $609.1 million, compared to $851.3 million in the prior year—a 28.5 percent drop. Net earnings for the first quarter were $14.91 million, down 64.5 percent from $42.03 million a year prior. The drop in revenue was “largely due to the impact of construction materials pricing, which peaked in the comparable period in 2022,” said the company in a release.

Aliaxis SA, which operates in North America under the Ipex brand, has reached an agreement to acquire the manufacturing business of U.S.-based Valencia Pipe Co. The $250 million transaction will bring two production facilities and one distribution centre into the Ipex fold, in the states of Arizona and Washington. In a release, Alex Mestres, Aliaxis’ divisional CEO of the Americas, called the acquisition “an excellent opportunity to expand our reach into the western United States.”

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Retail sales decreased by 1.4 percent to $65.3 billion in March. Sales fell in five out of nine subsectors, representing 55.5 percent of retail trade. The biggest declines were in automotive and fuel categories. Core retail sales for the month rose by 0.3 percent in March, the fourth consecutive increase. The gain was led by higher sales at building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers, which were up 1.6 percent. (StatCan)

NOTED

Martha Billes, daughter of Canadian Tire co-founder A.J. Billes, and her son, Owen Billes, own 61.4 percent of all common shares of Canadian Tire Corp. According to CTC’s 2022 annual report, they “beneficially own, or control, or direct the shares through two privately held companies, Tire ‘N’ Me Pty. Ltd. and Albikin Management Inc. Both Martha and Owen are members of the CTC board. Martha was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2022.

OVERHEARD…

“Canadian Tire and our associate dealers do not condone the anti-Trudeau protests happening in some of our stores’ parking lots. Use of our logo, and unauthorized rallies in our stores or parking lots, are strictly prohibited.”
—A tweet issued by Canadian Tire on May 17.