Success only runs one direction....
Those of you registered for the National Stationery Show have been receiving periodic emails advertising lower hotel rates. After receiving yet another, a friend emailed to say “I gather the advance bookings are down.” An obvious assumption…
…but not an accurate one. [click here to continue…]
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A lot of conversation is going on in offices around the country right now as vendors and sales agencies debate the value of having taken booths at the various gift shows. In normal years, the conversation would include sales numbers that justify the expense; this year, however, the paper written during the shows won’t tell the entire story.
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My heartfelt rant about the numbers game and Atlanta attendance is apparently getting some traction. Have had a couple of phone calls and emails from vendors asking where, then, I think the disconnect is between what they saw in their showrooms and the actual attendance count data. Here’s my response:
1. Look around your showroom. Are the products offered also begin carried online? If so, there’s part of your problem. Retailers are avoiding things that can be found in their stores, then purchased online for a discount. Why in the world would they want to be some e-tailer’s free showroom?
2. Are your vendors selling to big boxes? There’s another part of your problem. Independent retailers have had it with Target, Kohl’s, WalMart, and the like. They’re trolling those aisles before they come to market, making darn sure they don’t pick up the same stuff.
3. Did your vendors offer new product? Did you show new lines? If not, well, duh. Explains why the temps had foot traffic and you didn’t. Lots more newbies…less overexposure.
4. There are three types of buyers right now:
Group A showed up and ordered. Group C skipped the show entirely (don’t even try to tell me that’s a bad thing), and Group B-—the vast majority of buyers-—will be working with your road reps or faxing in orders from catalogs. That’s not lost business. It’s rescheduled business, if you play your cards right and attend to their needs without making them feel pressured.
5. Smart buyers aren’t front-loading with as much inventory as before. Smart buyers are bringing in sure sellers, at a conservative pace. They plan to place reasonably sized re-orders as needed, rather than take on a whale-sized shipment all at once. As cash comes to them, orders will come to you. Can’t judge a show on just the paper written at it any more; technology and a sagging economy stretch that window out by six months.
6. Double check your math. When pondering quieter hallways at the show, did you factor in the reality that most buyers are clipping their stays down to two or three days? Ex: Let’s say you have 100 people (for the sake of easy numbers), five days, and a hallway. In a good year, all 100 people are in the hallway every day, from morning to night. Makes it look like 500 people were there (100 x 5), but there really were only 100. Now…let’s say those same 100 people each cut their time in the hall to only two days. Still had all 100 people…just never saw them in the hall at one time. Some days, could have been as many as 80 of them there…other days, could have been as low as 20. Never all 100 in a single glance. Trying to gauge show attendance by traffic levels without factoring in frequency is flawed math. Badly flawed math.
It’s all cyclical, folks. Let’s use this economy to hone our skills and survive together.
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This is absurd.
The 30% tale has now ballooned to an eye-popping 40-50%, as stated by someone in a large, visible industry group (who shall remain nameless).
By NYIGF, I fully expect to hear that only seven buyers showed up in Atlanta all week. These rumors make the children’s game of “Telephone” look like an exercise in astrophysics.
Enough already.
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To the retailers who attended my “Speed Networking” session on Sunday:
You guys rock. Big time.
It was my first fully interactive gig (as well as the first time I’ve allowed someone else to name the theme), which had the butterflies in my stomach flapping like mad over breakfast that day. As I told Mom, “Either this will work spectacularly, or it will bomb spectacularly. We’ll know in the first five minutes.”
Thankfully, you guys went with option A…and continued to do so for about an hour after the session officially ended. Felt like a proud parent on graduation day.
So…keep it rockin’ folks. You truly are someone’s Go To Guru* and the apple of my eye.
*If you were there, you know. If you weren’t, well…shoulda been.
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Prepare yourself. I’m about to climb on my soapbox.
We all know the economy’s tight. And we all know that a tight economy will have a negative impact on the gift industry. And we all know one of those negative impacts is lower attendance at the gift shows.
No shock there.
What is shocking, however, is the rampant rumor mill surrounding attendance at the Atlanta gift show last week. Granted, I’m partial to Atlanta as one of its Advisory Board members, but that doesn’t make me stupid. I’ve got it a bit more together than that.
Here’s where I climb up on my box, so buckle in.
A person (who shall remain nameless) told me Atlanta’s attendance was down 30%. I assured him that number was wildly (read: incomprehensibly, extraordinarily, over-the-moon-ily) inflated…which it was. Having attended last Monday’s meeting, I know the actual number, and folks, it ain’t even remotely close to this sky-high 30% stuff; attendance was significantly better than that.
As in double-digits-significantly.
What gets my goat, is that the same rumor found its way to Chicago in a mere six days, where it had grown to a whopping 30-40% drop. The person who told me (who shall also remain nameless) is someone of the highest moral character…the kind of guy who simply isn’t into rumors.
Needless to say, I nearly came out of my shoes.
Yes, marts and shows are competitive, and yes, many “fudge” on the numbers to gain a (perceived) advantage. But-—and this is a big but-—Atlanta is using hard data. They count the number of buyer badges printed on-site; they aren’t using eyeball estimates of how many people are in the hall or strolling through a showroom. They’re counting actual breathing, physically present bodies. Besides-—they’re audited on this stuff.
Face it-—with most buyers opting for shorter market trips these days, showrooms aren’t going to look like they did when everyone stormed the hallways all at once. Buyers are coming in shifts, which lessens bottlenecking, just like highway on-ramp meters do. No mystery there.
Also, they’re getting pickier about whose product to take a chance on this holiday season. If it’s a sure hit, they’re in. If it’s the least bit iffy, well…as Heidi Klum would say “Yow out.”
Folks, we have a choice to make. Either we get real about what’s going on in our industry, then adapt -or- we allow rumors to perpetuate a gloomier reality that we already have.
Of course, the latter will only make things worse, which is just plain ridiculous.
Some showrooms saw 30% drops in their traffic and their orders. Some showrooms saw 30% increases in their traffic and their orders. My bet is product and attitude have a lot more to do with which end of the numbers game someone’s on than attendance, regardless of where they’re showing.
So…whadaya say we all put our pointy sticks down and stop trying to poke holes in one another? Maybe, just maybe, we can float back to the top en masse when this thing passes.
There. End of rant. Thanks for listening.
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Welcome to the Big One. Welcome to Atlanta.
At first glance, traffic is pretty good-—not jammed, but good. According to several vendors, the “majors” (ie, the national accounts) are coming in next week in lieu of their usual pre-show visits, working around long Fourth of July vacations. Helps explain why it’s easier to snag an elevator in Building Two.
I expect to see the pattern from NSS and Dallas repeat here, with traffic sharply dropping around mid-afternoon on Sunday. Buyers haven’t forgone the big shows; they’re just squeezing them into two or three days instead of the familiar five or six.
Note to vendors: Embrace these die hard, come-hell-or-high-water retailers. They’re making it work, even if it means some sacrifice along the way.
Note to road reps: If you don’t take advantage of this, you’re nuts. There’s never been a time getting out there, in person, has been more important or more welcome.
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Just got an email from Sara at the Chicago Mart-—if you’re thinking about attending either the Power Lunch session or the Trolley Tour, better sign up soon. The head count’s getting up there fast on my noon session, and we’re already up to four trolley cars for the tour.
Both promise to be big fun. If you’re on my trolley car, be sure to say hi-—looks like I’m playing Hostess with the Mostest on one of them.
Of course, I have to behave, since my mom will be along too.
Wink, wink.
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