The New Playing Field

If you run a local hearth shop, your competition used to be the dealer down the street or one town over. Back then, you were on a somewhat even playing field. You both had showrooms. You both carried similar product lines. You both served the same customer base with similar resources. The competition was real, but it was also fair.

Of course, those days are long gone.

Today, your competition includes massive big-box retailers and online platforms that offer everything under the sun. Between them, they have corporate advertising budgets, professional marketing teams generating content for social media, websites that let customers shop 24/7, sophisticated logistics networks moving products to consumers’ doorsteps, deep discounts that would bankrupt most independent dealers, and pricing leverage that comes from buying in bulk.

But here’s what they don’t have: certified installers, local techs, or community connections. Big-box staff can’t install the fireplaces they sell. Online retailers can’t service what they ship. And neither one is going to go out to a customer’s house to diagnose a draft problem.

That’s why local hearth shops can still beat big-box and online retailers in 2026, even though there’s a big gap in marketing budgets and discount offers. All it takes is leading with expertise, leveraging local relationships, and making it easy to buy.

Let’s break down these three strategies one at a time.

Lead With Expertise

It’s no secret that big-box stores and online retailers have been expanding their hearth and grill offerings for years. They keep running flyers, offering discounts, providing flexible business hours, and building websites that let customers check in-stock availability at their local stores. These are all things designed to make it easy to do business with them.

But what they don’t have is real expertise.

Have you ever asked big-box staff members a question about an appliance they’re selling? Try it sometime. Ask what the recommended chimney height is for a particular insert. Ask how many pounds of pellets a stove will consume per hour. Or better yet, ask who to call if there’s a service issue down the road.

This is where the specialty dealer needs to shine. And it’s no longer good enough to say “we service what we sell.” You have to prove it.

Your social media accounts and your in-store space should showcase your service staff in action—technicians doing the actual work on actual jobs. Forget the boring headshots that look like every other staff page on the internet. Show real people doing real installs, real diagnostics, real cleanings. Caption each photo with a sentence or two about years of service, certifications, and specialty skills. Highlight who they are outside of work: community coaches, volunteer firefighters, sports enthusiasts—real people with real lives.

Then, take it further. Let your employees know you value them by featuring them periodically on your socials, especially when customers leave reviews that mention them by name. Community verification means a lot these days, and it means even more in smaller markets, where people actually know their neighbors.

That said, there’s one more challenge worth mentioning: Consumers can now get instant answers from YouTube, ChatGPT, specialty chat groups, and even manufacturers’ own online help forums. The expertise advantage that local dealers used to hold by default is no longer automatic. You have to earn it.

So train your team well, lean into your expertise, and let your customers know about it—because that’s a huge advantage you have over the big boys of retail.

Leverage Local Relationships

I’ve recently been shocked to see how many replacement parts are now available on the major online shopping platforms, including remote controls, blowers, interior firebox parts, and other things that used to be the exclusive domain of specialty dealers. Many of these parts are labeled specifically to fit recognized models—the same models you stock, sell, install, and service. They even use the same part numbers we all use. The pricing on some of these items is below your cost, and they ship to consumers’ doors in just a few days.

Could they be knockoffs? Possibly. But consumers don’t necessarily know that, and if the part meets a need and solves a problem, they may not even care.

So what’s the local dealer to do?

Let’s start with this reality: Not everyone shops on big sites. Plenty of consumers genuinely value shopping local, and when given the choice, many will choose the local dealer every single time. Your job is to give them reasons to choose you.

That means making “shop local” something more than a slogan. Let your community see who you are and what you stand for. If your team supports a local charity, feature it. If your shop sponsors a youth sports team or shows up at community events, talk about it. A small section in your showroom can tell that whole story—who your team is, what they care about, and how your business shows up in the place you all call home. All of that local context gives credibility that no national retailer can replicate.

Combine that community presence with the staff features I mentioned above, and you’ve built a clear, consistent reason for customers to choose you. Because even when your prices are higher than what they’re seeing online, you’re fostering local connections that those other companies simply can’t create.

Make It Easy

Of course, industry expertise and local credibility won’t always carry the day—because the big boys make things convenient, and that’s where many sales get decided.

If you’re a regular listener of the Fire Time Podcast, you’ve heard this hundreds of times: You have to make it easy for customers to buy from you, or they’ll go somewhere else. That’s why big-box stores and online retailers show product pricing, make it easy to pay online, and offer free shipping. You may not be able to match all of that—but you can match more of it than you might think.

Start with what your website and socials communicate. Can customers see, at a glance, that you stock replacement parts for popular brands? Can they see that you offer service and repair? Even at the simplest level, a clear shoutout that you carry lots of repair items and offer service goes a long way.

To go further, lean on your manufacturers, distributors, and the Fire Time team for resources to help you build an in-stock “store” online. One grill manufacturer recently made an interesting pivot: Instead of selling grills directly to consumers through their own site, they built a dealer-focused “Shop Local” platform that shows consumers whether the products they’re searching for are in stock at their local dealer. It’s quick, it’s convenient, and it sends customers to your door instead of away from it. The industry needs more collaboration like this.

And if website work feels overwhelming, you don’t have to do it alone. Find a student. Take on someone for a work term. Hire your teenage child. Contract a professional firm. Depending on your needs and your budget, this can be done well without breaking the bank.

So here’s the bottom line: Convenience doesn’t have to be where you lose the sale. With the right tools and the right partners, it can be one more reason customers choose you.

The Equation to Win

At the end of the day, you can’t out-spend the big boys, and you can’t out-discount the online retailers. But you can compete with them—and even beat them—by leading with expertise, leveraging local relationships, and making it easy to buy.

After all, when you lead with expertise, your knowledge becomes the reason customers stop scrolling and start calling. When you leverage your local relationships, your community becomes a marketing engine that no national retailer can replicate. And when you make it easy to buy, convenience stops being the reason you lose the sale.

Pull all three threads together, and the framework comes into focus:

That’s the equation for profitability—and it’s one you’re already equipped to solve.