I’m climbing on my soapbox, so buckle in. I’m ticked.
This summer, my heart was buoyed by the fact so many vendors and sales reps brought a positive attitude to their showrooms and booths. The negative complaints about buyers, marts, traffic, etc. were replaced by (what I thought was) a realistic understanding that the economy stinks, consumers need to be engaged, and that with some compassion, patience, and understanding, we’d all come through this thing together.
Sadly, now that the summer show circuit has ended, I’m getting an inordinate number of phone calls and emails about vendors who have taken off the white gloves and replaced them with boxers, using strong arm tactics designed to corner accounts into impossible situations. [click here to continue…]
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If you’ve worked in retail for all of…oh..say twelve minutes, you know the customer is most certainly not always right. For those who’d like a chuckle over the insanity that others experience, 
The Buyers Market of American Craft
Talk about one of the little guys (and I don’t mean by volume) hitting a payday…. The venerable giant, Amazon, just ponied up 10 million shares worth $880 million to buy shoes.
Well, here we go…off to the Big Show, the summer gift show at AmericasMart in Atlanta. Admittedly, I’m a bit curious about the next few days and how they’ll play out. In January, we were all looking each other in the eye for the first time since the market nose dived into oblivion. It only took 24 hours for the collective :::sigh::: to be heard across the three block campus as everyone recognized they were in this thing together.
The venerable 
This one breaks my heart.
As promised on Friday, today’s post is a continuation of my conversation with John Ranes, owner of 
