In a word, 2021 was busy for the team at Howard’s in Southern California. And 2022 looks to be more of the same as the retailer gets set to expand into more markets. We sat down with President and CEO John Riddle and Chief Customer Experience Officer Michelle Nein to talk about their growth strategy, which has included two recent acquisitions and the planned opening of several new experience centers throughout the region.

The ceramic Komodo-style grill space can be a rather intimidating one for consumers. New Nationwide vendor partner Vision Grills explains how their product — and the game-changing quick-change gas technology that it supports — is helping to retailers simplify the story for their customers.

Nationwide Marketing Group’s VP of Consumer Electronics Lee McDonald looks back on a humbling 2021 and projects what’s to come for the industry in 2022.