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A Statement of What We Believe
The hardware store on the corner is worth saving.
Amazon is a race to the bottom. So is Walmart. So is every big-box chain that treats the local economy as overhead to optimize away. They don't care if the hardware store down your street closes — they care if their fulfillment cost drops half a penny.
We don't believe in that. National Hardware Group exists because the alternative isn't acceptable to us, and we think it isn't acceptable to a lot of other people either. If you're here, you're probably one of them.
The Race to the Bottom What you actually get from the cheapest option.
01
A counterfeit risk you can't see.
Marketplace sellers on Amazon are notorious for swapping authentic products with knockoffs that share the same listing. Same photo. Same model number. Different factory. You won't know until the tool fails on a job, or the part breaks under load. The warranty? The manufacturer won't honor it unless you bought from an authorized seller.
02
Expertise replaced by a chatbot.
Walk into a big-box hardware aisle and try to find someone who's ever actually installed what they're selling. You'll be lucky to find anyone at all. Call support, and you'll reach an offshore contractor reading from a script. The person at the independent store down the road has probably installed it three times this month.
03
Your dollar leaves and never comes back.
Every dollar you spend at a national chain or online giant gets extracted out of your local economy almost immediately. The wages it pays are minimal, the supplier contracts are with national vendors, the taxes get diverted through corporate structures. Roughly $0.14 of every dollar stays local at a chain. Roughly $0.48 stays at an independent.
The Data Independent retail isn't sentiment. It's economics.
Local Economic Recirculation
3×
Independent retailers recirculate roughly three times more money per dollar back into the local economy compared to national chains.
Civic Economics, "Indie Impact Study Series" · American Independent Business Alliance
Independent Hardware Retailers
10,500+
Independent hardware stores still operating in the U.S. — down from more than 25,000 in the early 1980s.
North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA)
Dollar Stays Local
$0.48
Stays in the local economy at an independent retailer — compared to just $0.14 at a national chain. More than 3x the impact.
Civic Economics, multiple U.S. market studies
Tax Revenue Per Sq Ft
2×
Local tax revenue generated per square foot at independent retailers compared to big-box stores — after subsidies are factored in.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)
U.S. Jobs Lost to Amazon
149,000
Net retail jobs eliminated in the U.S. due to Amazon's growth, even after accounting for jobs Amazon created. Local stores employ more people per dollar of sales than warehouses do.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance, "Amazon's Stranglehold"
Customer Service Quality
86%
Of consumers say they get noticeably better service from independent retailers than from chains — and are willing to pay slightly more for it.
American Independent Business Alliance consumer surveysWhat We Refuse The decisions we will not make.
Every retailer at scale has to choose what kind of business it wants to be. Most pick the path that maximizes margin, automates away friction, and treats customer relationships as conversion data. We picked something else. Here's what we will not do:
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We will not run a third-party marketplace.
Every product we sell comes from authorized channels, sourced through the same distribution network that supplies thousands of independent hardware stores nationwide. No fake sellers. No knockoffs hiding behind real product photos. No race to the lowest bidder on quality.
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We will not pretend to be small while operating like a giant.
Big-box stores spend marketing budgets to feel "neighborhood." We're not interested in that performance. NHG is founder-led, runs out of the Pacific Northwest, and answers to customers and partner stores — not to a private-equity owner extracting quarterly returns.
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We will not route you to a chatbot.
When you call us, you reach a person. When you text us, a person reads it. When you email, a person answers. Our customer service is staffed by people who actually know hardware — not an outsourced call center reading scripts.
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We will not be the cheapest at all costs.
We're competitive. But if you're hunting for the absolute lowest price regardless of who you're buying from, what you're getting, or what it does to your local economy — you're in the wrong place. There are other websites. Our customers aren't bargain hunters. They understand value.
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We will not steal customers from local stores.
Our store locator routes customers to nearby independent retailers when those stores can serve them. Sometimes we lose the sale on purpose. The independent hardware channel is healthier when its local stores are healthy — and that's a math problem worth losing some online orders to solve.
I want to live in a world where the local hardware store is still on the corner when you need it. Not because big-box finally cared. Because we built something that worked.
What We Believe Five principles we don't negotiate on.
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I.
Communities are not optimization problems.
The hardware store on the corner is part of how a neighborhood functions. It sponsors the Little League team. It hires the kid down the street. It special-orders the part nobody else carries. When it closes, the neighborhood loses something it cannot replace through a search bar.
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II.
Real expertise is rare and worth defending.
The person at the independent store who can diagnose your problem in ninety seconds spent twenty years learning how. That knowledge doesn't scale through algorithms. The only way it survives is if customers keep using it — and pay for it.
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III.
Accountability requires a name and a face.
When the warehouse pick-and-pack worker makes a mistake, no one knows who they are. When the local hardware store owner makes a mistake, you can walk back in and have a conversation. That structural accountability is what produces real service — not the kind written into a brand guideline.
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IV.
Authentic products are the only acceptable kind.
Counterfeit and gray-market products aren't a minor inconvenience. They void warranties, fail at job sites, and ultimately damage the trust customers have in entire categories. We will not be part of that supply chain.
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V.
The independent hardware channel is worth fighting for.
More than 14,000 independent hardware stores have closed in the U.S. since 1980. That's not market efficiency. That's an extraction event. The channel that remains is the foundation of every project, every renovation, every repair that gets done in a real neighborhood by a real person. NHG exists to make sure it stays standing.
How We’re Built The operational answer to all of this.
Shared distribution network.
We ship through the same distribution network that supplies thousands of independent hardware stores nationwide. Your online order strengthens the same supply chain those stores depend on.
Authorized retailer status only.
Every brand we carry is sold through official manufacturer channels. Full warranty support, authentic packaging, and real product backed by the companies that made it.
Store locator that gives sales away.
Our locator routes customers to nearby independent stores when those stores can serve them in person. We lose the online sale on purpose. The channel gets stronger every time we do.
Real people answering the phone.
M–F 6 AM–5 PM PST, staffed by people who actually know hardware. Call. Text. Email. We respond. There is no script and no chatbot.
Pro accounts for working buyers.
Contractors, facility teams, property managers, government buyers — one application unlocks Net 30, volume pricing, and a dedicated rep. No minimum spend. No marketplace games.
Founder-led. Pacific Northwest.
NHG is founder-led and run out of the Pacific Northwest. No private-equity owner. No quarterly extraction. The person who decides what we sell is the person who answers when something goes wrong.
Your Move Three habits that change the math.
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1
Check the local store first.
Before you order online, look up your nearby independent hardware retailer. Often they stock it, often at competitive prices. The ten-minute drive is a vote for keeping them open. It's also usually faster than two-day shipping.
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2
Use the expertise. In person.
Bring in the broken part. Ask which screw works. Get the right recommendation from someone who's done it. That expertise is free at an independent store, but the only way it survives is if customers use it — and reward it with the sale.
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3
When you buy online, buy in the channel.
NHG ships through the same distribution network that supplies thousands of independent stores. Your online order strengthens the same supply chain those stores depend on — not Amazon's, not Walmart's, not a faceless warehouse extracting from your zip code.
If This Sounds Right
You're in the right place.
You're in the right place.
Let's make this work.
Whether you're shopping for a single product or buying for a business, your orders here strengthen the same independent hardware channel that's been the backbone of American main streets for over a century. We'd like to keep it that way.