85 years of Ace
Ace was established in 1924 by a group of Chicago-area retailers who united their hardware stores to increase buying power and profits. Today, the co-op stands at some 4,600 stores in more than 60 countries and 14 distribution centers, including one in Shanghai, China.
Ace Hardware’s history largely mirrors the rise of entrepreneurial business in the 20th century. As the Oak Brook, Ill.-based co-op celebrates its 85th anniversary this year, Home Channel News tells the story of the co-op through its members.
CEO Ray Griffith cautions about tough times ahead, but the company has been through tough times before and lived to tell about it. There was the Great Depression that started in 1929, the same year a feisty group of 11 original Ace retailers opened their first warehouse—a 25,000-square-foot building in Chicago. And then there was the early 1940s, when World War II brought with it labor and merchandise shortages and limited opportunity for growth. But Ace bounced back, posting its highest-ever sales to that time in 1945, and boasting 133 stores in seven states and wholesale sales topping $7.26 million by the end of the decade.
Fast forward to 2008: Ace reached the top of the Home Channel News Top 350 Distributors Scoreboard with wholesale sales of $3.97 billion. (In the company’s most recent third quarter, sales decreased slightly to $969.2 million.)
To capture the spirit of the changes in Ace over its 85-year-history, HCN profiled three Ace dealers: one whose history dates back nearly to the founding of the company; one that has made the most of its limited downtown space and has ventured into several lucrative sidelines; and a third that drives home that image of helpfulness by assembling all outdoor furniture and related products before they’re even put out on the floor. But first, Griffith explains why the co-op is still managing to have fun in the midst of a challenging market.
