Ace Hardware keeps cashing in on the corner store

Ace Hardware’s formula of localizing merchandise and offering individualized customer service is continuing to pay off for the hardware retail cooperative.

The company reported record revenues, profits and patronage for fiscal 2014. Ace had revenues of $4.7 billion, an increase of $546.3 million or 13%. Revenues increased $496.9 million or 12% as compared to fiscal 2013. Net income was $140.9 million for fiscal 2014, an increase of $36.4 million or 34.8%, from fiscal 2013.

"My congratulations and thanks to the entire Ace team for delivering our best year ever, in the same year we celebrated our 90th anniversary," said John Venhuizen, president and CEO of Ace Hardware Corp. "Our founders would be delighted to see our patronage distribution to shareholders exceed $135 million, an increase of 34 percent and a record for the company."

The approximately 3,000 Ace retailers who share daily retail sales data enjoyed a strong quarter as well, with increased customer count and average transaction size driving a 4.7% same-store-sales increase for the fourth quarter of 2014. Same-store-sales at these stores were up 4.2 percent for all of fiscal 2014.

"Strong same-store-sales growth at retail coupled with 201 new domestic stores and our strategic wholesale acquisitions fueled the double-digit growth," Venhuizen added.

Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2014 were $1.16 billion, an increase of $139.2 million or 13.6%, from the fourth quarter of 2013. Net income was $12.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2014, a decrease of $10.7 million from the $23.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. This decline was caused by a 1.4 percentage point drop in the wholesale gross profit margin rate that was primarily driven by increased store-level merchandise reset spending and additional markdowns to clear closeout inventory.

Ace Hardware has more than 4,800 hardware stores locally owned and operated across the globe.