Sales were up at Orgill event, way up

Orgill’s Spring Dealer Market and Online Buying Event, the distributor’s first-ever hybrid show, surpassed all of the company’s previous buying market sales records, the company announced.

Orgill reported that sales from the Spring 2022 events were up 33 percent from the 2021 Spring Online Buying Event and eclipsed Orgill’s last in-person Dealer Market held in Spring 2020 by a full 47 percent.

“Last year’s Spring Online Buying Event was the largest show in terms of sales that we had ever had,” says Boyden Moore, Orgill’s president and CEO. “To see this first-ever hybrid event surpass that show by such a wide margin is really a testament to how well the concept has resonated with our customers, how eager they were to get back to business, how strong sales are in the market right now and how well our vendors rose to the occasion.”

Orgill’s in-person Spring Dealer Market was held February 24-26 in Orlando, Florida, and its Spring Online Buying Market ran from February 21-March 4.

Beyond the record-setting sales numbers produced by the combined events, there were a number of other highlights from the shows, which also served as a platform for celebrating Orgill’s 175th anniversary.

“The combined events were a long time coming for our team, our vendors and our customers,” Moore says. “I think anyone who participated, particularly at the in-person show, couldn’t help but get caught up in the energy and enthusiasm surrounding the event. While sales are always an important measuring stick for us, we also saw this as a great milestone in our company’s evolution in a number of ways, from our anniversary to the growth of our Technology Symposium and more.”

The Spring Dealer Market also marked an important evolution in Orgill’s role as an industry leader in helping independent home improvement retailers find success with their retail technology efforts. On the Wednesday prior to the start of the Spring Dealer Market, Orgill hosted representatives from about 100 different retail operations at its annual Technology Symposium.

Orgill has been hosting these Symposiums for the past 5 years. Initially the gatherings were focused on eCommerce but have now expanded to include all retail technologies, including eCommerce, in-store technologies, mobile apps, POS systems, loss prevention, analytics and more.

The most recent iteration of the event was a clear testament to how far the concept has come since its inception, according to Grant Morrow, Orgill’s program director for retail and eCommerce.

“When we first began hosting these events, it was a handful of companies who were early supporters of eCommerce and who wanted to get together to learn about how Orgill, with our industry partners like Unilog and Epicor, could work with them to help launch and maintain an eCommerce presence,” Morrow says. “Now, we have hundreds of companies attending this and it has gone from a small gathering of retailers to a full-scale event.”