Ace Hardware attendees head to the keynote at the Ace spring show 2024 in Dallas. Photos by Tim Burke.
John Venhuizen, president and CEO of Ace Hardware strided on stage at the company’s spring show 2024 in Dallas with a message: “Always play to win, it channels intensity.”
A couple thousand attendees packed an auditorium next to the show floor to hear the keynote, where part of his message was, “to celebrate 100 years of leadership and be poised for more.”
The CEO interjected some business news: Brett Stephenson is stepping down from his position as chair of the Ace board of directors and Steve Burggraf, owner of Burggraf’s Ace Hardware and a board member since 2019, will take over in May.
After applause from the standing room only crowd in the arena, he went right back to his message of playing to win.
“Don’t be complacent,” he said and flashed some numbers while he talked.
The average Ace store’s yearly revenue in 2019 was $2.5 million, today it’s $3.6 million. The goal is to increase the average store to $4 million in sales.
“Our same stores are flat, or slightly down, our profits are weakening – we must play to win,” said the CEO.
“Our B2C market share is 30%. That’s strong. Any business would kill for that. But we must do more with the B2B segment, he said. “There is a multi-family opportunity out there; our market share right now is only 2%.”
Venhuizen said the third component is B2P.
“The pro segment is growing faster than ever. Paint and plumbing are two examples,” he said.
“Ace is working on, and testing, having Ace stores fulfill pro product needs,” he said.
“There's a massive opportunity here. We’re not ready yet with this model. But we’re testing in Texas, with plumbing, and in Colorado, with paint.”
Ace has 100 years of expertise in Business-to-Consumer, he said, “but our next jolt forward is a combo of all three: B2C, B2B, and B2P.”