Research & Guides

What Matters to Customers is a market study that measures the success of family-owned retail hardware stores in meeting customer expectations. It defines those expectations and pinpoints the reasons customers choose hardware stores in preference to big-box home improvement centers. To read the …

The Employee Compensation Report presents data on employment, wages and benefits in the retail hardware/home improvement industry. It includes employee productivity data from the most recent North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA) and the Home Center Institute’s (HCI) cost of doing business survey, …

Retail Strategies for the 21st Century: Competing with the Big Boxes is a research study that details strategies and tactics independent hardware retailers can implement to co-exist with big box home improvement centers. During the year-long project, nearly 350 hardware store owners and …

This report outlines the implications for the retail hardware/home improvement industry that come from a 2002 merchandising study by the Russell R. Mueller Retail Hardware Research Foundation. It builds on a 1989 baseline merchandising study which established industry benchmarks for merchandising techniques. Click here to view the …