113 YEARS AGO, my great grandfather Urbano Aletti started a paint contracting business here in New York. There was no Benjamin Moore paint in our town of Harrison, and the only way to get access to their paint was to open a store. Not one to be deterred, Urbano decided to open a store with the primary intention of supplying his own business.
And thus two businesses were in the family: a paint contracting business named Aletti & Sons, and a paint retailing store named Harrison Paint Supply. It turns out other painters and homeowners in the area wanted Benjamin Moore paint too, so the store grew into just as serious of a business as the painting side.
If 1910 is the first big date, 1946 is the next. In 1946, we bought the land at 59 Purdy St here in Harrison, New York. That address is where the store has been ever since.
When Urbano passed away, one of his sons, Roy Sr, took over the store, and the other sons took over the painting business. The painting business eventually went non-union and renamed to Property Maintenance, but they are still thriving and next door to the store today.
Roy Sr passed it down to his son Roy Jr, who is my uncle and the current owner.
I first got involved when I was 12 years old. Other kids would go to summer camp, and I’d go to Harrison Paint! I worked after college for a few years but then had a full-time career for 20 years at Interactive Data, which is now owned by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and is named ICE Data Services. In the very back of my mind, I knew I’d come back to Harrison Paint some day, but I was busy getting married, having kids, and focused on my professional career.
About five years ago, I came back to the store full time.
During the 113 years since 1910, we have had no point-of-sale. I knew that it was time to modernize. We started looking at various vendors. Our main factor was ease of use. There were two major things we needed to do: run sales at the counter, and collect payments for charge accounts.
Jesús, our Benjamin Moore rep, introduced us to Max at Rundoo, and it was an easy decision. Roy was a little worried about Rundoo being a newer company, but through getting to know Max, we were confident they would give us way more attention than we could get elsewhere. We had been doing things the same way for over a hundred years, and it was comforting to know they’d be involved and come in-person!
The team uploaded the data for most of our vendors and set us up with computers and barcode scanners—we had none on the counter because we had been using paper tickets.
Most importantly, everyone learned it quickly and enjoys using it, even the people that aren’t very computer savvy. I only had to show my uncle how to take a payment on account once. He now has been running the back office successfully with no help.
All this to say, we’re very happy with Rundoo. If your store has been operating with no point-of-sale, I’d highly recommend them and am available to talk through our experience.
