Blueprints for expansion
The 2024 Ace Hardware Convention in Chicago was much more than a celebration of the co-op’s 100 year anniversary. There is more growth to be done. And much of it will come from existing Ace hardware stores looking to add a second, third or one-hundred-and-third store location to their business.
An educational session on the McCormick Place exhibition floor included four Ace retailers who shared their ideas on the nuts and bolts of expansion.
Ace’s Jason Hipskind, vice president of new business, led the session, titled “Branching out into multi-store ownership.”
Panelists were:
• Neil Asma, 13 stores in Florida;
• Alan Walter, 5 stores in Texas and Oklahoma;
• Bobby Heuser, 3 stores in South Carolina; and
• Matt Dowdell, 5 stores in Montana.
Hipskind shared the co-op’s goal to be a top national retail tenant of choice. He elaborated: “If a landlord has available real estate, we want them to consider Ace as one of the top five [businesses] that they want to have as a tenant.”
The co-op’s focus is to find locations in grocery-anchored neighborhood centers, as well as locations that are former pharmacies and former discount retailers - think Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. “Those buildings make awesome hardware stores,” he said.
The co-op believes there are are thousands of open development areas for new stores.
“Over the course of the last two years, 3,000 pharmacies have closed,” Hipskind said. “If we can bring Ace to those stores and help those communities, that’s our goal.”
The retailers on the panel who have successfully expanded their footprint shared ideas.
Among them: “Going from one [store] to two is the hardest,” said Alan Walter. “Later, you’ll have people you can lean on, and you’ll have experience and expertise.”
Staffing and human resources received significant attention during the session.
Bobby Hauser said it's unlikely that an owner will have just the right amount of staff to kick off a new store. “We realized there’s two options: you’re going to be overstaffed, or you’ll be tight,” he said. “Don’t fall into one or the other by accident. We proactively say that it’s OK being overstaffed from the get-go.”
With more stores come more experience, and the ability to specialize roles.
“One of the great things about having multiple stores, is that we have a district manager, a bookkeeper, an IT person, “ said Alan Walter. “It’s been a game changer. With one or two stores, you wear so many hats.”
