Ace Hardware beats True Value in Q2

On the heels of an impressive financial report from rival True Value, Ace Hardware is reporting even better sales in its second quarter.

For the quarter ended July 4, Ace Hardware Corp. had record revenue of $1.4 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 6.5% from last year. Ace’s retail same-store-sales reported by approximately 3,000 Ace retailers who share daily retail sales data increased 6.5% and Ace Retail Holdings LLC rose 4.7% due to an increase in customer count and average transaction size.

"Ace’s record second quarter revenues for the second consecutive year were a direct result of the hard and effective work of our great people and world class retailers," said John Venhuizen, President and CEO, Ace Hardware Corp. "While our net income declined from last year, we are still far ahead of our plan and believe the investments we are making are a significant driver of the impressive 4.6 percent increase in retail same-store-sales for the quarter.”

Retail revenues from ARH were $85.4 million during the second quarter, an increase of $5.7 million or 7.2%. Average ticket price increased 3.1% and customer count increased 0.9% compared to the prior year period. Same-store-sales increased 3.9% compared to the second quarter of 2014 with the largest increases in lawn and garden and electrical.

Retail gross profit for the second quarter of 2015 was $37.1 million, an increase of $1.8 million from the second quarter of 2014.

Ace added 31 new domestic stores in the second quarter of 2015 and canceled 27 stores. This brought the company’s total domestic store count to 4,256 at the end of the second quarter of 2015, an increase of 30 stores from the second quarter of 2014.