The Private Label Play — NHS Concept to Commerce Offers Way Source and Brand Products
By Stefanie Couch
From inventor booths to established vendors, NHS Concept to Commerce offered independent hardware store owners an easy path to source and brand products for their stores.
NHS Concept to Commerce this spring drew vendors from around the world, and buyers to match. Representatives from Do it Best, Orgill, True Value, Lowe’s and more walked the floor alongside independent home improvement dealers, all looking for the next product worth putting on shelves. That’s the opportunity in front of every inventor and emerging brand in this industry: Be unmistakable.
That’s the lesson from this year’s show, held March 31 to April 2 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Buyers were here. Shelf space is available. Technology is accessible. But none of that matters if nobody can find you, recognize you or remember you—and that’s where private-label products help.
With such offerings, home improvement retailers can show up as often as possible where their customers and buyers are already looking. The market does not reward the best-kept secret. It rewards those who refuse to be one.
PINK HAT HOT TAKE: Most retailers still think about private label as a way to save money. That’s the wrong frame entirely. Private label is a brand strategy. The stores that figure that out first are the ones that become impossible to replace.
How Retailers Win with Private Labels
During an NHS Concept to Commerce workshop, Cody Goeppner, the North American Hardware and Paint Association’s director of education and training, laid it out clearly in his session “Private Label as a Weapon.” He drew on his time running retail at Bleyhl Co-op, a rural farm-and-ranch co-op in Washington’s Yakima Valley. Private label wasn’t about undercutting a national brand on price. It was how Bleyhl planted its flag. Products with the Bleyhl name told the community something the national brands never could: This is ours. We stand behind it. We chose it for you. That is brand. Brand is what keeps a customer from driving past you to get somewhere else.
The data reinforce it. The retailers winning with private label aren’t the ones racing to the bottom. They’re the ones who figured out that your name on a product is a relationship, not just a SKU. Supplier selection, margin modeling, speed to market, all of it matters. But none of it matters if you don’t know what story you’re trying to tell.
Lowe’s made this point in its own way. The message from its team was direct: The stronger the brand and marketing behind a product, the better it performs on Lowe’s shelves and online. They’re not just buying products. They’re buying into the story behind them.
PINK HAT HOT TAKE: If you’re an inventor or an emerging brand and you don’t have a brand strategy, you don’t have a retail strategy. Lowe’s is telling you directly. The product is not enough. The brand is what gets you in the door and keeps you there.
Women Leaders on Building a Brand That Sticks
The difference between a good idea and a real business is visibility—being seen, recognized and remembered by people who matter. The women’s panel during NHS Concept to Commerce drove home that point from an entirely different direction. I moderated a conversation among Gina Schaefer (founder, A Few Cool Hardware Stores), NataLee Callahan (inventor, Aleah power tools), Sarah Lee (VP of purchasing, Blish-Mize) and Brookelyn McClellan (fourth-generation retailer, Hardware Sales, and 2025 NHPA Young Retailer of the Year). Four women with four different industry seats. Every one of them built something recognizable because they committed to a point of view.
Brookelyn is co-branding craft beer with local breweries and building Altamax, Hardware Sales’ private-label brand. NataLee got tired of tools designed for men or dressed up in pink and built her own. Gina built a $55 million business and sold it to her own employees because the brand was worth protecting. Sarah decides what 1,500 independent retailers carry on their shelves. These are not accidents. These are people who understand that identity is a strategy.
PINK HAT HOT TAKE: Visibility in this industry is not just about marketing. It’s about whether your customer, your buyer and your community can see themselves in what you’re selling. When they can, you stop being a vendor and start being the answer.
AI in Practice, Not Theory
I also presented “The AI Advantage” at the NHS Concept to Commerce Expert Talks conference. The room was split right down the middle. Half of attendees use AI every day; half are curious but haven’t used it. That gap is going to cost the second group.
My talk focused on where AI is moving money in retail right now: procurement and supplier risk, dynamic pricing and demand forecasting. Supply chain disruptions cost the average organization nearly half a year’s profit over a decade. Dynamic pricing paired with electronic shelf labels means you can respond to a competitor’s move the same day, rather than finding out about it weeks later. AI-driven forecasting cuts errors by some 20 to 50 percent and can reduce lost sales by up to 65 percent. That margin leak is quiet, and most retailers don’t hear it until they’re well behind.
For smaller operations, the starting point is not complicated: ChatGPT or Claude for procurement questions, supplier risk and day-to-day strategy; Prisync for competitive pricing intelligence. Most AI projects fail because there’s no coherent strategy behind them. Home improvement retailers’ takeaway from this presentation: Pick one thing. Use it this week.
PINK HAT HOT TAKE: AI is not replacing good operators. It’s making good operators faster, sharper and harder to compete against. The tools are here. The question is whether you’re using them or waiting for someone else to prove their utility first.
Inventors Area with Products Built to Perform
The Inventors Area should be a required pit stop for anyone who thinks this industry has run out of ideas.
The Rak-O is a four-in-one garden tool: a retractable rake, a hoe, an animal waste collector and a bottle opener that’s already in Tractor Supply nationwide. But the booth highlight was Vivian, who was there with her dad, working the floor with more confidence than most veterans twice her age. Vivian, this industry needs that energy. Keep going.
Quick Draw just won a 2026 NHPA Retailers’ Choice Award. This product solved the oldest problem in the trades, the missing pencil, with a magnetic clip that works on every writing instrument and attaches anywhere. Done.
MultiPail by Edge Concepts is already in Do it Best stores. This reimagined five-gallon bucket has a flat dustpan edge, pour spout, built-in paint roller tray, interior and exterior measurements and grip bottom lip. It’s made in the USA. And it has a mold ready to go with your brand and your color on it.
That last line is worth reading twice: A mold. Ready. With your name on it.
PINK HAT HOT TAKE: Every product in that Inventors Area had a shot at a major retailer’s shelf during NHS Concept to Commerce. The ones that land will have the clearest brand, the strongest story and the marketing to back it up. That’s the example Lowe’s has recently set, and it echoed throughout the NHS Concept to Commerce.
Stefanie Couch is the founder of Grit Blueprint, a growth and visibility firm for the building industry. She hosts “The Grit Blueprint Podcast,” speaks nationally on AI and modern sales strategy and works with companies across the channel to build brands that lead and convert. Learn more at gritblueprint.com.
How Women Rise Awards Presented during NHS Concept to Commerce
How Women Rise at NHS Concept to Commerce is a dedicated initiative, often in partnership with Build Women, designed to empower female leaders in hardware through dedicated panels, networking and keynote addresses, including “The Power of Building Your Personal Brand.” Recipients include:
Lifetime Achievement Award: Gina Schaefer, cofounder, A Few Cool Hardware Stores—Acehardwaredc.com, author of Recovery Hardware
Community Impact Award: Darla Claypool, senior director of Corporate Philanthropy at City of Hope
Rising Star Award: Brookelyn McClellan, marketing and business strategy manager, Hardware Sales
Leadership Excellence Award: Sarah Lee, vice president of purchasing, Blish-Mize Co.
NHS Concept to Commerce 26 Retailers’ Choice Awards
The NHPA Retailers’ Choice Awards, sponsored by the North American Hardware and Paint Association, honor the year’s most innovative products, selected by a panel of independent retailers at industry trade shows. Dating to 1966, the annual awards highlight products that offer high sales potential and unique value, guiding retailers on top-tier inventory. Recipients include:
- HOMEDANT K-Steel Shelving Solutions
- Gator Magnetic Hook and Baskets
- TripleLite Keychain Flashlight and Wide-Beam Flashlight
- Take-Off Adhesive Remover
- JD Hardware LLC Survival Garden Seeds
- Composer Garbage Disposal
- Lucyd Smart Eyewear
- M&M Industries Bags N’ Seals
- Quick Draw Pencil Holders
- CKD Solutions FunL
UIA Product Showdown Awards
The United Inventors Association (UIA) awards at NHS Concept to Commerce recognize outstanding inventors in the Inventors Pavilion, often featuring a “Product Showdown” competition. These awards highlight innovative products and offer mentorship and industry recognition to emerging inventors, with winners often announced during the show.
- Rising Star: Vivian Day (The Better Tool Company)
- Most Innovative: MultiPail
- Best in Show: Anchor Works
- Best Marketing: Mission Tool Company
