Just over a year ago some big news came down the pike.\u00a0 Leading hardware cooperative Ace Hardware had actually acquired a retailer.\u00a0 In fact said retailer was not only one of Ace\u2019s members, it was the co-op\u2019s largest and likely most prominent member.<\/p>\n
Westlake Hardware is an 85 store regional chain.\u00a0 The retailer has often been able to draw reporters looking for good stories.\u00a0 Stories have included \u00a0a staged promotion involving \u2018zombies\u2019, predictions on the industry\u2019s current financial plight with estimates on its future and heading panels at prominent trade shows to demonstrate the advantages of\u00a0 being a regional player.<\/p>\n
When Ace announced its purchase of Westlake, a greater understanding of Ace in particular and industry co-ops in general immediately emerged.\u00a0 For years casual industry players and observers referred to retailers contracting with co-ops as franchises and often as co-op owned stores.\u00a0 Through the years I encountered these misnomers surprisingly all too often, at times from industry veterans.<\/p>\n
What makes this type of misunderstanding all the more regrettable is that many who thought member stores were actually owned by companies like Ace, True Value and Do It Best, assumed that the only way to approach the stores is through the parent,<\/em> such as Ace.\u00a0 Those who thought member stores were actually franchises, often assumed that to approach a store, one would encounter a maze of restrictions on product specifications as is often found in the world of restaurant franchising.<\/p>\n In fact nothing could be further from the truth.\u00a0 Go to an Ace dealer show and one comes upon essentially a regional trade show.\u00a0 Here many manufacturers man booths to promote and demonstrate their latest and traditional wares.\u00a0 Additionally some booths are manned by dealers of assorted minor, generally low-priced goods, which can often be classified as tchotchkes. Through the years I have met with several of these merchants who proudly boasted of the comfortable living they have made selling these wares directly to very welcoming, individual Ace retailer members, by visiting their individual stores.<\/p>\n When Ace announced its acquisition of Westlake Hardware, most reports noted that Westlake was its single actual retailer possession.\u00a0 This came as a surprise to many.\u00a0 As I wrote at the time, Ace did own and operate a chain of stores between 1998 and 2006. \u00a0Chain Store Guide<\/strong> listed them as Ace Company Owned Stores<\/em>.\u00a0 These stores were begun as a project, a laboratory in effect, through which the co-op could closely observe customers in a controlled environment.\u00a0 Here Ace determined to try new concepts, grade them and finally demonstrate them to their vast network of members.<\/p>\n When Ace felt that these stores had completed their mission, the project was abandoned.\u00a0 At its peak there were a total of 27 Ace Company Owned Stores.<\/p>\n After Ace completed its purchase of its number one member- Westlake- there was speculation as to the possible changing nature of the co-op.\u00a0 Would Ace now be scooping up retailers?\u00a0 Would they change the enviable stature of Westlake or its autonomy?<\/p>\n During the ensuing year virtually nothing has changed regarding these questions.\u00a0 Ace has not acquired an additional retailer.\u00a0 <\/strong>As Ace stated at the time of the purchase, Westlake remained autonomous.\u00a0 In fact, at the time of the purchase, Ace stated that Westlake would retain its management team to run the business essentially as usual.<\/p>\n Now comes a significant change to Westlake\u2019s management.\u00a0 It was just announced that Tom Know, Ace\u2019s Director of Retail Business Development is moving to Westlake headquarters in Lenexa, KS and has been named CEO of Westlake Hardware. \u00a0<\/strong>He replaces the departing George Smith who was the CEO of Westlake prior to Ace\u2019s acquisition and remained in that position for over a year as Westlake was integrated into the Ace structure.<\/p>\n Now the question becomes, will the new CEO, a prominent Ace corporate product, change Westlake. Will the strong regional culture change?<\/p>\n Mr. Knox comes from a place in Ace which was pure Ace retail planning and design.\u00a0 His position pretty much descended from the Ace Company Owned Stores experiment which ceased existence nearly a decade ago.\u00a0 Thus one would think that Mr. Knox comes to Westlake with at least somewhat of an agenda for change.<\/p>\n The Westlake management team has always been seen as a strong unified force, who choose to maintain close ties to the communities they serve.\u00a0 They have long confirmed that knowledge of customers and interaction with them is what has long made Westlake a much admired success.\u00a0 It is unlikely that Mr. Knox being both an Ace retailer insider, while technically a Westlake outsider will attempt to change much of Westlake\u2019s culture or its long time humor and success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just over a year ago some big news came down the pike.\u00a0 Leading hardware cooperative Ace Hardware had actually acquired a retailer.\u00a0 In fact said retailer was not only one of Ace\u2019s members, it was the co-op\u2019s largest and likely most prominent member. Westlake Hardware is an 85 store regional chain.\u00a0 The retailer has often… Continue reading Ace Adds To Its Control Over Westlake<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-hardware","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}