By the numbers

Hardware Retailing, March, 2008

47% Percentage of retail shrinkage that can be attributed to employee theft, according to the 2007 National Retail Security Survey, conducted by the University of Florida.

3.5% Retail sales growth predicted for 2008 by the National Retail Federation.

$33,000 Average amount of variance allocation accounts Ace Hardware retailers need to pay back for the co-op to restore its equity in the wake of a $152 million accounting error.

4.5% Sales increase for the 2007 holiday shopping season in the United States, according to ShopperTrak RCT.

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25 Number of Wal-Mart stores in Canada that I will now be open 24 hours a day.

$145 Sales per square foot for the typical hardware store, according to the 2007 Cost of Doing Business Study, published by the North American Retail Hardware Association (800-282-1642 or www.nrha.org).

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$15.5 BILLION U.S. demand for power and hand tools in 2009, a 3.8 percent annual increase, according to The Freedonia Group.

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500 Number of customers who visited Peter's True Value in Milford, Mich., for a recent "Ladies Shopping Night" promotion.

2,915,000 Number of name searches on the web for The Home Depot, according to Internet Retailer magazine. Depot placed second to Wal-Mart (3.6 million) among retailers but had more than twice as many name searches as Lowe's.