Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
It’ll be a “Wholesale Hardware Harvest” in October when House-Hasson hosts its Fall Dealer Market in Sevierville, Tennessee, bringing a harvest of deals to its members. And while the House-Hasson Fall Dealer Market is still two months out, House-Hasson president and CEO Steve Henry is excited for what the organization will offer dealers this fall and sat down with Hardware Retailing to share those highlights. He also shares insights on how House-Hasson is helping dealers navigate challenging economic times and what’s on deck for 2026.
Hardware Retailing (HR): What are you most looking forward to at the Fall Market?
Steve Henry (SH): The Fall Market will be the first full market for our new vice president of merchandising, Matt Patti, who’s doing an awesome job and will continue to help grow that portion of our business. Every time we do a show, we raise the bar for ourselves for the next one and always try to take feedback from attendees into account for the next show.
Based on that feedback, at this show, we’ll be hosting our golf tournament early Thursday morning so that we can all enjoy that together. That golf tournament has really grown, and now has over 200 golfers, including dealers, vendors and House-Hasson employees. After golfing, we’ll have a cocktail hour followed by the soft opening of the showfloor, allowing dealers and vendors to start doing business on Thursday evening and give them a head start.
HR: What will be the highlights of the upcoming Fall Dealer Market?
SH: The showfloor was really busy at our July show with lots of activity at the booths and plenty of new vendors. We’re expecting the same for this show thanks to that side of our business picking up and the addition of our two new warehouses and expanded territories.
We always look forward to new vendors and the deals, and I just love how the markets are a family reunion. I find we can spend a lot of that time appreciating our dealers and vendors doing business with us. It’s a good time to be able to spend time with them and listen to them. You can never listen too much—whether it’s a complaint or a problem, there’s a lot to be said for just listening to what they have to say. I love that I get a chance to do a lot of listening at the show.
HR: What types of operational investments do you anticipate making in 2026 and what will be the impact on your dealers?
SH: I feel like we do an excellent job in our Knoxville and Pritchard distribution centers, so we want to elevate our Ashley and West Helena DCs to that same level. There are some products territorially that sell in some areas and not in others, but primarily, I believe all of our DCs need to have the same SKU count in them and operate with the same efficiency.
If we can get SKU count consistent to where we can rearrange some routes to become more efficient and more timely, that’ll help us and our dealers a great deal. We’re having to learn some things that other companies probably already know because they have more DCs than we do, but aligning our distribution network is a big task for us in the upcoming years.
HR: What are the biggest challenges facing the independent home improvement channel in the next year and beyond? How will House-Hasson help its retailers face these challenges?
SH: Tariffs and price fluctuations continue to be big concerns we’re hearing from members, but one major way we’re navigating this is bringing on Matt Patti to lead merchandising efforts.
He’s very good at managing the pricing of our inventory, and for our dealers to be profitable, we have to have our inventory priced correctly so they can get the margin they need to be competitive.
We’re working on retail pricing and constantly automating processes in the buying department so we can be more proactive rather than reactive. We’re trying to be positive about it and being transparent. As soon as we know about something, we let people know.
HR: What are the biggest opportunities facing the independent home improvement channel in the next year and beyond?
SH: Dealers might be tired of hearing ‘be true to ourselves,’ but that’s what we need to do—keep offering that value proposition of providing a high level of service and knowledgeable employees. You can’t put a price tag on personalized service. We need to keep doing what we’re doing. And, we always have to listen.
Our dealers are really good at training employees and offering high levels of customer service. That’s why they continue to thrive and do well. And, we’re going to continue helping our dealers price their inventory right.
