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I was involved in e-commerce when The Grommet came about and they have a lot to be proud of. That said, the reason for things ending with the founders losing co
by 2020-07-17 6y ago
I was involved in e-commerce when The Grommet came about and they have a lot to be proud of. That said, the reason for things ending with the founders losing control is that they took a lot of money and then didn't live up to expectations.
Put more directly, they never held their own against Kickstarter, IndieGogo, or Etsy.
Their investor/owners went from Rakuten (the Amazon of Japan) to Ace Hardware. The latter probably thinks of The Grommet as a way to use quirky products to get people into physical stores. At that point the founders probably want out more than they are letting on.
- js2 6y agoSo they stuck some end-caps in Ace stores and put a section on its website and for that gave up a majority share? https://www.acehardware.com/grommet https://www.acehardware.com/grommet What was Ace Hardware expecting out of this deal? Aside: my local Ace is frustrating more often than not. I go there because it's a mile away, but the inventory is so small that at least half the time I can't find what I need and end up driving the extra 15 minutes to the big box hardware store. This Ace also has a small section devoted to pet supplies, but there again, it's often too small to be useful. An example: we adopted a dog last year and I wanted to get a name tag right away. PetSmart has kiosks that print these on-demand. The Ace store does not. Their employees are also no longer the experts that Ace stores were once staffed by. I'm lucky if they even know their inventory. Meanwhile at HD, I can usually find someone with plumbing experience in the plumbing section, electrician experience in electrical, etc. Not always, but so far I'm batting 0% at Ace.