CANADA'S HANDS-ON SUCCESS STORY
Home Hardware has been supplying tools and materials for more than 55 years
Being handy around the house comes from both skills and materials, but the materials availability side of things is often taken for granted. The ability to get your hands on hardware when you need it is key, and this got me thinking about a Canadian hardware icon.
Quietly, carefully and successfully, Canada's own hands-on hardware success story — Home Hardware — has been supplying good things to Canadian homeowners, gardeners and tradespeople for more than 55 years. You can see the beloved red, white and yellow logo from coast to coast, and not just in big cities. Rural areas like mine depend on Home Hardware for everything from seed potatoes to welding gases to cutlery, scouring pads, propane refills, rubber boots and bird seed. If I need a tiny #1024 set screw that's 1/4” long, I know just the spot to find it in the metal tray at the bottom of the plumbing aisle.
My local hardware store wasn't always a Home Hardware. It started off with another corporate allegiance, but the day it switched over and became an HH was a happy one for me. I've always been a bit eccentric in my interest in hardware, and even as a boy I'd open up a hardware store catalogue and flip from page to page for enjoyment, educating myself about the different kinds of hardware. Home Hardware always had the best catalogue — then and now — so I was happy when I could actually buy from the best locally.
There are unique things I like about Home Hardware that I don't see elsewhere. First, they're dealer owned. This gives owners a clear stake in the business, and it shows. Every HH I've ever shopped at has delivered a personal shopping experience that's entirely different from corporate-owned hardware alternatives. The dealer-owned model was spearheaded by Walter Hachborn, a hardware retailing legend in Canada with a one-ofa-kind story.
In 1938, Hachborn began working as a stock boy at the predecessor to Home Hardware, a place called Hollinger Hardware. Eventually he purchased the company in partnership with two other men, and launched the dealer-owned model and the new name. The HH logo is as Canadian as it gets — red like our flag, and launched on our centennial year of 1967.
Hachborn enjoyed an almost 80-year working career, he earned the Canadian Hardware Retailer of the Century award in 1999, in 2000 he was given the Order of Canada, and in 2007 he received the Queen's Jubilee medal. In 2015, just a year before he died at 95 years old, Walter Hachborn was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame.
Another thing I like about Home Hardware is the comparatively small size of the stores. When Hachborn conceived of the dealer-owned approach the big box invasion was beginning to put pressure on independent local hardware stores. He saw it coming and the HH model was an answer to that. It gives dealer-owners access to products at low prices, while still preserving that personal connection between store owner and customer.
If I'm looking for something in my local HH and can't find it, a friendly young man named Jesse greets me by name and takes me to the right spot. If I'm after something out of the ordinary, I might talk to Mike, the store owner. He'll look at his computer and make all kinds of great things appear on the next store order.
It's easy to take blessings for granted, and that includes the plentiful availability of hardware to keep our homes and gardens in good shape. So next time you see that familiar HH logo, know that you're looking at a homegrown Canadian success story that makes our hands-on lifestyle all that much better.