NRHA Acquisition to Enhance Retailer Benefits

As part of its ongoing mission to help independent home improvement retailers become better and more profitable merchants, the North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA) is pleased to announce that it will be offering an entirely new suite of benefits to retailers, made possible through its acquisition of Missouri-based Vendor2Member.

Vendor2Member is the independent hardware industry’s largest product-sourcing directory and allows hardware retailers the opportunity to quickly source non-warehoused products directly from their primary wholesaler/distributor’s vendors while passing all billing through each respective wholesaler.

 “Vendor2Member has already built a large and loyal following within the home improvement industry because it effectively brings retailers, vendors and other channel partners together in an efficient and meaningful way,” NRHA president and CEO Bill Lee says. “As an NRHA program, we will continue to find ways to enhance the Vendor2Member platform to make it even more valuable to retailers, manufacturers and distributors.”

Vendor2Member was founded by brothers Alex and Reed Smith. Alex Smith’s career has encompassed both the retail and distribution sides of the home improvement industry, first working as a general manager for an Ace Hardware store and then as a buyer with Do it Best Corp. Reed Smith has an extensive background in marketing with an emphasis on online and internet marketing and worked in this capacity for several large companies before founding Vendor2Member.

As part of the acquisition, both Alex and Reed Smith will join the NRHA as full-time employees where they will be responsible for continuing to promote and enhance the Vendor2Member platform, as well as working on other NRHA initiatives.

“Alex and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to join forces with such a stand-up organization like NRHA. We share so much of the same vision and goals to help retailers that the acquisition just made so much sense. The NRHA will supercharge the Vendor2Member platform to be of even greater value to the hardware retailers and vendors we each are so dedicated to serving,” Reed Smith says.

One of NRHA’s first steps following the acquisition will be to launch a consistent educational program to make retailers, manufacturers and distributors aware of the powerful capabilities of the Vendor2Member platform, according to Lee.

“We are very excited about this acquisition and being able to share this fantastic resource with even more retailers,” Lee says. “Simply put, it solves a problem for retailers and can help them better connect with their industry channel partners and run better, more efficient operations.”

NRHA will make more information about the program available in the next several months.

For more information about Vendor2Member, please contact Alex Smith at (314) 441-5399 or alex.smith@vendor2member.com.

For more information about NRHA, please contact Bill Lee at (800) 772-4424 or BLee@nrha.org.