INTERVIEW

OPE + talked with Ace Hardware team members Matt Flentge, director of marketing, and Brandon Boyle, director of merchandising, to learn more about the company’ s growing sales of outdoor power equipment.

OPE +: My neighbors and I talk about where we shop, Ace or Lowe’ s or Menards. But that’ s mostly hardware and home repair focused. I’ m not sure Ace gets into the discussion when we’ re considering power equipment. We have a good local OPE dealer nearby. Where does power equipment rank in your world? Matt Flentge, Ace: Over the past seven to eight years, outdoor power has become more of a focus within our four walls. We carry Stihl, we carry Ego, we carry Toro, Milwaukee, Dewalt, Craftsman. You talk about all the big brands within outdoor power, they fall within our group and there are no other retailers that you could say that about. So yeah, there’ s no doubt it’ s an extreme focus for us. Our growth in that category over the past five to eight years has been really good. Brandon Boyle, Ace: One of our biggest growth drivers has been in the power world, whether it’ s outdoor power equipment or power tools. We carry the same brands that you’ ll see at big box stores, with a few exceptions. We’ ve come so far in growing our market share and continuing to chip away at some of our competitors. And you’ re only going to see it continue to rise. Hopefully we see more of your friend network talking about Ace. Whenever we typically see a customer go somewhere and they make their first purchase of a brand, we tend to all of a sudden get, oh, I’ m going to search for an Ego blade. And all of a sudden, Ace pops up because our locations are right in everybody’ s backyard. That customer is now coming over to Ace and converting.

OPE +: Stihl is interesting to me; they’ re adding zero turn mowers and I don’ t know how you’ d fit one in the Ace store in my neighborhood. How do Ace Hardware stores manage that? Flengte: A lot of creativity. We are rolling out a program called Elevate Ace and it’ s a new store format that creates these brand shops or stores within a store for some of these bigger categories like outdoor power equipment, grills, power tools to create this brand experience.

We’ re giving stores an opportunity to create this experiential space. Sometimes that involves the front sidewalk of a store if we have to get really creative where you have a smaller footprint. I mean, a lot of our stores are 5,000 square feet, but they still do really well with zero-turn mowers or even more of that contractor-style product because they’ re utilizing that space to the best of their ability. Or they’ ll have a garden center where they can put some of their equipment.

The manager of the Ace store in my town told me Stihl is a strong seller, more for gaspowered equipment than battery power.

Boyle: I’ ll tack on there and say when you look at our format and what makes us different against some of our competitors, we can be nimble, we can adjust to market conditions quickly. We don’ t need decision holders at the top waiting to make an answer for a retailer to execute an action, such as go stock these zero turns, go put them on your front sidewalk, go after that market.

OPE +: But with a 60-inch mower, it’ s literally just a product that a lot of Ace Hardware owners can’ t stock, right? What have you learned from each other in that way, Ace and Stihl? Flentge: It’ s limited right now because it is so new for Stihl. We’ re not just going to go let all 11,000 retailers sell a $ 30,000 zero turn right out of the gate. They’ ve done a good job going after the right retailers. It’ s critical to have somebody who is knowledgeable on that sales floor to actually go and sell that product. Every time you come into an Ace store there’ s a Red Vest ready and willing to talk to you about anything. And we have experts there, somebody that actually knows what they’ re talking about with a $ 30,000 piece of equipment. You’ ve got to make sure you’ ve got the right folks trained to be able to sell those.

24 OPE + September 2025 www. OPE-Plus. com