The Hardware Guy blog, from Dallas
Ace CEO John Venhuizen talked to attendees at the spring show about growth opportunities in B2B.
Up a few stairs to the expansive Ace “B2B balcony” (my term), there’s a row of familiar brand names, and representatives are talking with attendees and demonstrating tools.
Besides the networking going on at the Ace spring show, plenty of products are on display, some brand new for rollout this spring and summer.
Here’s a quick peek from the show floor today, nearly live, not quite, but pretty darn close.
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Mike at Diablo, a B2B partner with Ace, shows off his drill skills.
“Business at the show has doubled since we partnered in B2B,” he said over the beautiful noise of the drill spitting shavings and the smell of fresh drilled wood.
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Back down in the big hall, Brett, the Craftsman rep, standing in a side aisle within the massive Stanley slash DeWalt slash Craftsman booth, showed me an exclusive on a new Craftsman V20 scrubber.
“It detaches to handheld as well,” he said. We stood it up for a photo op. And it stayed standing.
The household cleaning category is growing, he said.
“This isn’t even out on the market until late spring,” he said. “Want to see another coming attraction?” He asked. “For sure, that’s what I’m here for,” we laughed.
We stepped around the corner to the DeWalt aisle and there was the sleek new ToughSystems DSL storage unit.
“It’s modular so the DeWalt toolbox fits on top and snaps in,” said Brett. Has deep drawers to fit lots of stuff a pro or DIYer needs.
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Other places drew plenty of attendees, like the Checkout area where dealers were checking out impulse and counter items, snacks and specialty smalls.
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The Rescue booth was drawing attention as two dealers wanted to know all about Fruitfly traps and Ant baits.
I overheard them planning to stop back later on and make a buy.
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In the main aisle I’m seeing a big crowd around the two-tiered STIHL booth, which was named by Ace as its vendor of the year for 2023. A sign in the aisle told me so.
Their midwest rep Leo told me they were having a great show. He was based near Minneapolis, he told me. They didn’t get much snow this year either. (Like us in Chicago.)
We wished each other well as I moved on down the midway.
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An area full of flowering plants and succulents, also on the main aisle, called “The Greenhouse” is drawing plenty of interest.
A representative in the area told me that dealer interest in artificial flowers today is “growing.” That’s a pun.
Neon always catches my eye so I snapped this photo.
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Across the aisle is the eye-catching Libman booth.
Their rep told me hardware is one of their biggest growing markets today.
Before I moved on, he took a moment to demonstrate their new skinny mop (my description) that uses a vertical bucket. It was cool.
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Ego caught my eye just nearby and I wandered into their tool cabin. It’s actually a tool trailer but I like the cabin feel inside. I liked it so much I took this photo.
I almost stayed and camped in there but I had to leave and write this story that I’m calling: “Nearly live from the Ace spring show floor.”
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