PRO Group is a retailers' cooperative

Retailers' cooperative

A retailers' cooperative is a type of cooperative which employs economies of scale on behalf of its retailer members. Retailers' cooperatives use their purchasing power to acquire discounts from manufacturers and often share marketing expenses. It is common for locally owned grocery stores,...

 and distributors' cooperative with $3 billion in annual sales. It has over 50 distributor-members serving 75,000 retail stores, and is the largest wholesale marketing organization in the United States. It is based in Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

 and was founded in 1953.

The company's retail formats include:

• PRO Hardware
• Farm Mart
• GardenMaster

It formerly had a division: National Paint Distributors, but that was disbanded.

Competitors

• Val-Test Distributors
  Val-Test Distributors
  Val-Test Distributors, Inc. is a cooperative that supplies over 100 wholesalers who distribute to 22,000 hardware, sundries, plumbing, electrical, variety and marine retailers. It was founded in 1962 and has sales in excess of $2 billion per year. It markets Keen-Kutter private label products.The...
  
  
• Distribution America
• Reliable Distributors
• Associated Building Materials Distributors