Ace Hardware Corp. has announced two top leadership changes for Ace Retail Holdings, the branch of the cooperative that operates the 100 corporately owned Westlake Ace Hardware stores. As of Aug. 1, Ace Retail Holdings’ chief operating officer Joe Jeffries was promoted to president and chief …

Click the picture to download a PDF of this story. Amazon Buys Stores and Walmart Buys Websites By Renee Changnon, rchangnon@nrha.org, Kate Klein, kklein@nrha.org, and Melanie Moul, mmoul@nrha.org Walmart, the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, has been playing catch up online with Amazon for …

Amazon has invaded another marketplace where many independent home improvement businesses and industrial suppliers, such as Grainger, excel. That marketplace focuses on commercial and industrial business-to-business selling, competing with “distributors who sell screws, pumps, fasteners and other parts for industrial America,” CNBC reports July 25. Amazon’s business-to-business arm, …

Spoga+gafa, the annual international garden fair, will be showcasing the latest in modern lawn and garden trends, such as stylish multifunctional furniture and new technology. The event, which is scheduled for Sept. 3-5 in Cologne, Germany, will be spread across …

Finding quality employees who stay long term and have the potential to become a next-generation store leader is a concern independent home improvement retailers express to the North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA). Recruiting members of Generation Z—who are the …

Sears Holdings CEO Edward Lampert recently increased his loans to the struggling company, which now total over $1.6 billion from the past two years, according to Business Insider. “Lampert, through his hedge fund ESL Investments, has agreed to give the company a $200 million …

Ace Hardware’s latest high-level hires came from three of the large public companies that compete with Ace stores—and that’s an advantage, according to the co-op. Many of Ace’s corporate positions are filled with people whom Ace has promoted internally. But …

Two years after a former Walmart executive and her business partner acquired luxury hardware store chain Gracious Home, a discount chain’s founder has bought the business out of bankruptcy. Tom Sullivan, who started flooring discounter Lumber Liquidators, bought New York’s Gracious Home retail operation for …