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Orgill welcomed current and prospective customers to its 553,000-sq. ft. Innovation Center in Collierville, Tn., this week for an opportunity to network with one another, mingle with the industry’s top vendors, and get a firsthand look at all the ways retailers can strengthen and grow their businesses—on their terms.
Held Nov. 3-5, the Grow Your Way event offers attendees a curated experience designed to encourage interaction, promote discovery, and generate actionable ideas that will translate into growth for their businesses, according to Boyden Moore, Orgill president and CEO.
“The home improvement industry continues to face stubborn headwinds from the economy this year,” says Moore. “That’s why we designed the Grow Your Way event to serve as a foundational platform for retailers to work with the Orgill team, our vendors, and one another to really focus on how they can grow their operations, even with the challenges they might face, and then to expose them to the products, tools and services they have at their disposal to help turn these growth plans into reality.”
Built around the theme, “Your business. Your opportunities. Your way,” the event seeks to stimulate ideas for attendees, expose them to potential opportunities and then emphasize an important Orgill differentiator: the ability to combine the scale and resources of a major distribution partner with the flexibility to develop solutions around the unique needs of each individual customer and the market they serve.
“Every one of the retailers attending this event comes from a different market, serves different customers and has a unique value proposition that is tied to their market and their brand,” says Clay Jackson, Orgill’s COO. “We don’t see these unique needs as a challenge for these retailers, but as an essential strength in how they compete. Our role is to provide our customers with the choices, resources and expertise they need to succeed on their own terms. Grow Your Way brings that philosophy to life.”
For retailers attending the event, examples of these opportunities will be easy to find the minute they step into the one-of-a-kind Innovation Center. In addition to networking with one another, Orgill team members and vendors, attendees can also explore curated areas of the Innovation Center to learn more about Orgill, tour one of the three fully merchandised model stores, explore and compare actual product assortments or attend one of the many educational opportunities taking place throughout the event.
Focusing on Customization and Choice
It’s fitting that Orgill’s Innovation Center provides the backdrop for an event with the goal of helping retailers develop their own customized growth plans.
The facility, the only one of its kind in the industry, features extensive product displays and permanent exhibits from nearly 50 premium and flagship vendors representing virtually every major home improvement category.
“It’s truly a unique setting and experience for attendees,” says David Mobley, Orgill’s executive vice president of sales. “Not only can retailers interact with our key partners, they can also explore our fully merchandised model stores, visit with our retail services team and spend meaningful time discussing their own growth plans and how we can help them on that journey.”
Among the manufacturers taking part in the Grow Your Way event are bellwether industry brands, including Milwaukee Tool, Stanley Black & Decker, Sherwin-Williams/Valspar, Rust-Oleum, 3M, National Hardware, Makita, Moen, Oatey, Rheem and dozens of other leading suppliers.
Retailers can interact with these vendors, browse their displays and discover new products, evaluate assortment opportunities and explore merchandising approaches that can be adapted to their individual stores and markets.
The event also coincides with Orgill’s Winter Online Buying Event, which runs from Nov. 2-15. Between Grow Your Way and the Online Buying Event, retailers have the opportunity to take advantage of a range of purchasing and promotional opportunities, including Door Busters, Power Buys, a New Item Showcase, the 2027 Spring/Summer Booking and Orgill’s Spring Is Here programs.
Orgill will also be spotlighting its broad selection of private-brand merchandise in a special area of the Innovation Center. The Private Brand Showcase will feature items from across a variety of popular product categories, with each assortment designed to deliver the elite quality, reliable supply and exceptional margins retailers are looking for.
“The opportunity to review not just our private-brand offerings but all of these products and deals in person allows our customers to evaluate product quality side by side, visualize how items will look on their shelves and work directly with our vendors and our team to build and customize orders that maximize their profitability,” says Jackson.
Connecting Retailers with Solutions
Beyond products and purchasing opportunities, Grow Your Way is also placing significant emphasis on networking, ideation and execution, and how the retail services and expertise available through Orgill and its industry partners fit into these activities.
“There’s no way around it: Growth is harder to come by in today’s retail environment,” says Moore. “Retailers need to be more deliberate and strategic about identifying opportunities for growth, and they need partners who can provide the expertise, resources and support to help them capitalize on those opportunities. That’s really what this event is all about. Whether it’s discovering new products, improving operational performance or exploring entirely new business opportunities, we want to help retailers identify the right path forward for their individual businesses and then execute those plans.”
To fulfill this goal, dedicated service areas are located throughout the Innovation Center during the event to connect attendees directly with specialists who can help address a variety of retail challenges and opportunities.
These dedicated service areas include solutions for store technology, such as electronic shelf labels, e-commerce capabilities, electronic data interchange and digital product information tools.
Retailers can also explore other services, including marketing services, store signage, branding resources, customer loyalty programs and other tools designed to help attract customers, strengthen their competitive positions and generate additional business.
Other service areas highlighted this week focus on filling the strategic needs of today’s operators with support in areas such as store planning and conversions, merchandising strategies, market research, demographics and pricing services.
“Providing support with operations and services is one of the big ways a company like Orgill can help provide our customers with the support and scale they need to compete more effectively,” says Jackson. “That’s why we are placing so much emphasis on helping align customers with all of the services and support that Orgill and our partners make available to them. But another key element of this event isn’t just showing the customers these services but creating an environment where they can talk with one another, share thoughts and really vet their ideas.”
Industry partners, including the North American Hardware and Paint Association (NHPA) and Cleveland Research, are also represented, providing access to additional educational resources and market intelligence.
Retail panel discussions and peer networking groups will also be featured throughout the event to help attendees learn from one another.
“Products are obviously a critical part of what we provide, but supporting independent retailers goes well beyond getting merchandise onto their shelves,” adds Mobley. “Our goal is to help retailers make better decisions about every aspect of their businesses, from their assortments and pricing to their marketing, technology and operations. The breadth of resources on display at this event reflects that commitment.”
Action-Focused Education
Education and inspiration are both central to the activities and physical presentation at the Grow Your Way event. Educational programming from the main stage at the center of the Innovation Center is featuring sessions organized around helping retailers build their own unique growth plans and better understand Orgill's capabilities that can help them implement those plans.
The event's first day kicks off with Moore setting the stage for attendees, sharing a broad perspective on the industry, providing updates on Orgill and explaining how the distributor leverages scale, breadth and flexibility to support independent retailers in growing their businesses on their own terms.
Educational programming throughout the remainder of Day 1 builds on this theme, featuring multiple retailer panels and presentations that clearly illustrate “the Orgill difference,” highlighting the company's unique market-driven approach to product selection, assortment development, pricing, merchandising and marketing, and how retailers can utilize these strengths to their advantage.
On Day 2, educational programming shifts the emphasis toward strategic business performance, drawing on insights from NHPA’s recent Cost of Doing Business Study to examine important financial and operational measures that influence retail success.
Other Day 2 sessions further explore opportunities to strengthen key areas of performance while connecting those challenges with practical strategies, services and resources available through Orgill.
Together, the educational sessions are designed to help retailers move beyond simply identifying business challenges to developing specific approaches for addressing them.
“One, we felt it was very important to get retailers up on stage to share their real-world experiences working with Orgill so all of our customers can see the possibilities available to them. Then, we want all of the education to translate to helping customers build actionable plans for growth, including connecting them with the resources they need to fulfill those plans,” says Mobley.
This week’s event also serves as an example of how Orgill has pivoted away from a more traditional cadence of live events to offer its customers more focused, curated events that are more representative of the industry’s needs, according to Moore.
“For so long, everybody kind of forced their events into a twice-a-year pattern,” Moore says. “The industry has just evolved beyond that. Buying cycles are different, which is why we pivoted to hosting multiple buying events throughout the year that are more closely aligned with retail buying cycles. And with that change, we can now offer more targeted events like this one that help retailers address their needs and present them with opportunities around timing that works for them, not try to force it into either a fall or spring event.”
By breaking from this pre-canned cadence and bringing together products, services, vendor partnerships, retail expertise and educational resources in a more flexible setting, Orgill is demonstrating how retailers can develop customized approaches to addressing their challenges and pursuing new opportunities on their terms.
“There's no single formula for success in independent retail,” says Moore. “What works for one business may not be right for another. We want retailers to understand that they have choices and that Orgill has the resources, expertise and flexibility to help them pursue the opportunities that make the most sense for their businesses.”
Established in 1847 and headquartered in Collierville, Tn., Orgill is the world's largest independently owned hardlines distributor with annual sales exceeding $3.8 billion. Orgill provides products and services to over 13,500 retail locations throughout the US covering all 50 states, all Canadian provinces and territories, as well as over 50 additional countries. Orgill serves a diverse range of businesses, including hardware stores, home centers, professional lumber dealers, and farm stores.
