Lowe's to rebrand 40 Rona stores

The president of Lowe's Canada, Sylvain Proud’Homme, has said that 40 big box RONA stores in Canada will be converted to the Lowe's brand in 2017, following the acquisition of the business earlier this year.

This first wave of conversions will take place for stores outside of the Quebec province, with a roll-out planned for 17 stores in Quebec in 2019. The delay is to allow Lowe's to implement suitable IT systems that can operate with the French language.

Sylvain Proud’Homme said: "Rona is going to be our biggest banner by number of locations in the portfolio," and said that the reasoning behind the move is to eliminate confusion between the product range and offer at its big box locations.

CBC News reported that, in total, "40 out of the RONA network of 600 stores across Canada and 295 in Quebec will change names over four years and join the 53 Lowe's Canadian locations."

Lowe's Canada states that it conducted research and analysis aimed at redefining the market segments for all its banners, in order to make it possible to better target the positioning of each banner and build consumer profiles.  In order to undertake this shift toward being more customer-centric, the company has adopted a new structure comprised of four business units: Big Box, Proximity, Pros and Contractors, and Affiliate Dealers.

"We have adopted a new functional growth model, so that each banner can have the ability to optimize its development," said Lowe's Canada President and CEO, Sylvain Prud'homme. "In this context, the RONA banner has clearly been identified as a strategic driver of growth for Lowe's. We have begun to reposition the RONA banner, with the goal of making the banner the number one retailer in the proximity store market (small and medium surfaces), which currently accounts for about 56 percent of the home improvement market in Canada."

Specifically, the RONA banner repositioning focuses on creating a new value proposition and a new store prototype. In 2017, RONA will implement more growth projects in a single year than it has in the last five years. These include the opening of four new proximity stores, the overhaul of nine stores, the introduction of large appliances at 47 stores, a thorough review of the product selection in several categories, as well as the development of a multichannel strategy (mobile, online, store) with frequent updates to enable customers to make their choices when, where and how they want.

Source : Insight DIY

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