Directly from the ICSC blog and Shopping Centers Today.
Shoppers at the grocery store are unlikely to be thinking about a wrench, a socket set or any other type of hardware or home-improvement item. If they are, though, they probably have in mind a trip to another store. But Ace Hardware and some grocery stores are teaming up to help save these shoppers a trip — and to enrich their own bottom line in the process. Ace and these supermarket collaborators — independently owned single units and some small chains — are attaching an Ace unit alongside a grocery outlet or setting up an Ace store-within-a-store arrangement in a section of the supermarket.
There are about 70 of these Ace-grocery combos across the U.S. now — hardly a ripple on the surface of the company’s 4,700 units internationally, but Ace takes the concept seriously. Last year the hardware company hired Mike Smith, a former executive at discount-grocery giant Supervalu, as its grocery channel manager. So far 80 percent of these combination units are store-within-a-store arrangements, but most of the newly developed units have side-by-side Ace stores and supermarkets, and that is the direction in which the company would like to go.
Ace has focused on independents and small regionals because management sees the biggest need in the market with those types of retailers, which are trying to compete with much larger players. And these smaller businesses are more nimble than a large corporation and can adopt initiatives like this Ace partnership without much red tape. Their stores tend to be more involved with their localities and are thought of as true neighborhood or small-town grocers — an image that Ace shares, given that the vast majority of its stores are owned locally by franchisees, even though its corporate reach spreads much further. In many cases the owner of the collaborating independent supermarket or small chain is also the franchisee of the attached Ace store.
“People are looking for other ways to drive sales into their grocery stores,” said Curt DeHart, director of business development at Ace. “We felt by co-branding these stores, we could not only drive more traffic into the grocery store, but we can grow this brand and drive traffic into Ace stores as well.”
A. Joseph Marshall
Coldwell Banker Commercial Platinum Partners
Estate and Portfolio Services
912-790-6999
Publish Date: August 28, 2014
Shoppers at the grocery store are unlikely to be thinking about a wrench, a socket set or any other type of hardware or home-improvement item. If they are, though, they probably have in mind a trip to another store. But Ace Hardware and some grocery stores are teaming up to help save these shoppers a trip — and to enrich their own bottom line in the process. Ace and these supermarket collaborators — independently owned single units and some small chains — are attaching an Ace unit alongside a grocery outlet or setting up an Ace store-within-a-store arrangement in a section of the supermarket.
There are about 70 of these Ace-grocery combos across the U.S. now — hardly a ripple on the surface of the company’s 4,700 units internationally, but Ace takes the concept seriously. Last year the hardware company hired Mike Smith, a former executive at discount-grocery giant Supervalu, as its grocery channel manager. So far 80 percent of these combination units are store-within-a-store arrangements, but most of the newly developed units have side-by-side Ace stores and supermarkets, and that is the direction in which the company would like to go.
Ace has focused on independents and small regionals because management sees the biggest need in the market with those types of retailers, which are trying to compete with much larger players. And these smaller businesses are more nimble than a large corporation and can adopt initiatives like this Ace partnership without much red tape. Their stores tend to be more involved with their localities and are thought of as true neighborhood or small-town grocers — an image that Ace shares, given that the vast majority of its stores are owned locally by franchisees, even though its corporate reach spreads much further. In many cases the owner of the collaborating independent supermarket or small chain is also the franchisee of the attached Ace store.
“People are looking for other ways to drive sales into their grocery stores,” said Curt DeHart, director of business development at Ace. “We felt by co-branding these stores, we could not only drive more traffic into the grocery store, but we can grow this brand and drive traffic into Ace stores as well.”
A. Joseph Marshall
Coldwell Banker Commercial Platinum Partners
Estate and Portfolio Services
912-790-6999
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