Orgill convenes in Orlando
Orgill’s much-anticipated market is back in Orlando. The South Hall of the Orange County Convention Center is designed for business, with model stores, a three-stage learning center, hybrid live-and-virtual presentations and thousands of vendors.
After a two-year pandemic-induced break from live events, the Memphis, Tenn.-based distributor welcomed attendees to the 2022 Spring Dealer Market, its first hybrid event, blending a traditional market with online buying.
The event runs until 2 p.m. Saturday.
Here are some early scenes from the convention.
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Orgill's 2022 Dealer Market runs through Feb. 26. -
A replica Town & Country Hardware Store is a major floor attraction. -
The Orgill Services area has taken on a more prominent location on the market floor. -
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Phillip Helms, Orgill's senior VP of merchandising services, presents a live (and virtual) session on Town & Country Hardware.. -
Lumberjack Home & Building Center was recreated on the show floor.
Around the show floor, retailers shared in an energy of pent-up interest in a live market.
“I’m just very happy to see people again,” said Peter Knelsen of JNL Steel Components of Seminole, Texas.
From Nassau, Bahamas, Adam Jordan Cartwright of Cartwright Building Supply told HBSDealer he is particularly interested in all things new. “We’re looking for all the new innovations,” he said. “For instance, the new technology, lasers, battery systems in the power tools category, whatever is new.”
Janet Lange of Bible Hardware is attending her first-ever Orgill Dealer market, and said that she is drinking it all in.
“This is awesome,” she said, looking around the South Hall of the Orange County Convention Center. “And I’m just browsing for everything.”
(Bible Hardware, she explained, is named for a former owner whose last name was “Bible.” It’s not a religious supplies retailer. “Sometimes, though, people call and ask if we have a King James bible,” she said.)
The event is being hosted concurrently with an Online Buying Event, which kicked off Feb. 21 and will run through March 4.
“We have all waited a long time to be able to gather together in person, but we have also learned a lot over these last two years about how to make these buying events as productive as possible for our customers,” says Boyden Moore, Orgill president and CEO. “We have found that there are distinct advantages to an in-person event that are very difficult to replicate online but that our Online Buying Events also offered additional opportunities for our customers.”
