TruServ debuts hardware, VC products Web site

Home Channel News, Jan 10, 2000

Chicago-based buying group faces new millennium with online initiatives

CHICAGO -- TruServ, the industry's largest buying group, headed into 2000 with a series of new online initiatives and a challenge to its competition.

The Chicago-based cooperative on Dec. 1, 1999, launched an electronic order clearinghouse called Net Warehouse, giving its 10,000-plus dealer-members immediate access to about 200,000 products, including hardware, tools and industrial and office supplies. By late December, the number of products had climbed to 350,000, according to Neil Hastie, TruServ's 51-year-old chief information officer. "Every week, new alliance partners and vendors are being added" to Net Warehouse, Hastie said.

During 1999, the co-op formed five partnerships to increase its product selection to TruServ's 800-plus commercial/ industrial members. Those partnerships include agreements with Milwaukee Tools, Airgas Direct Industrial, United Stationers, W.W. Grainger and Ferguson Plumbing. The co-op is negotiating similar alliances with another 20 wholesalers, although concerns about Y2K have postponed any accords until early 2000, Hastie said.

During Net Warehouse's first week of operations, 250 members were using Net Warehouse, ordering through one of three sources: the co-op's warehouse, its alliance partners, or any manufacturer or vendor capable of receiving electronic data interchange transactions. Dealer-members can use the system to supplement weekly orders, and make an electronic request one afternoon and receive products the next day, Hastie said.

In mid-December TruServ's industrial/commercial division announced that it had struck a five-year strategic alliance with EqualFooting, a "Request for Quotation" purchasing network for industrial supplies and equipment. The Dulles, Va.-based EqualFooting in late 1999 planned to launch its online marketplace for buyers and sellers of industrial supplies and new and used manufacturing and construction equipment.

Feeling competitive heat

Beyond business-to-business online efforts, TruServ plans enhancements to its consumer Web site, www.truevalue.com.

"We were in front [on e-commerce but] we're not in front anymore," Hastie admitted. "They've raised the bar," referring to the online retailer in which Ace Hardware invests, called OurHouse.com; and HomeWarehouse.com, which was launched in late 1999 by venture capitalists, and recently has struck alliances with Popular Science, Yahoo! and Comdisco.

"I'm going to raise the bar on them," Hastie vowed, who added that TruServ's consumer site would have a new look and feel in February. He refused to provide specifics.

Another online agreement, this one between TruServ and the National Retail Hardware Association, gives co-op members online access to the trade group's information database. The NRHA pact places the association's training, development and market research on the coop's Web site for its members, at membersonline.com.