Orgill, NHPA do the Texas two-step

What’s hot in Texas besides the big heat? – Two hardware and building industry conferences happening at the same time.

Orgill is hosting its Fall Buying Event, concurrent with the North American Hardware and Paint Association (NHPA) Independents Conference – both going on in Dallas right now.

At a late afternoon tech session on August 1, hosted by Orgill, panelist Adam Gunnett, director of IT and business intelligence for Busy Beaver Building Centers said, “personalized means people,” describing how technology can fit into a retail hardware business where people always come first.

Orgill, a wholesale distributor of hardware and home improvement products, is showcasing – at its Pavilion ballroom on the third floor of the downtown Dallas Marriott hotel – new Smart Start programs; new products; and online buying event work areas, among other highlights.

And retailers have come to connect at the NHPA conference, which begins the following day, held at the Sheraton Dallas hotel, kitty-corner from the Orgill event, “to share trends and solutions in retail technology,” said NHPA.

At the tech symposium, off a cool, breezy, indoor, monster-huge atrium – because everything’s big here in Texas – Gunnett seemed to set the tone for the networking happening at the Orgill conference, saying to the audience of a hundred or so attendees, “technology can make us more efficient.”

Lots of nods of agreement from the onlookers.

And lots more to come from the conferences here in Dallas.

Overheard in the Orgill Pavilion later from one attendee to another on the topic of retail technology: “e-commerce is another salesperson who works 24-7.”

And so the tech talk in Texas begins.