The Tale of Two Markets

This week, I had the distinct pleasure of going to both the Las Vegas market and the High Point pre-market. In the old days, I used to have customers show up at different factory market spaces at the same time. At least they were in the same city! But this last week I had customers in Vegas, High Point and overseas. I also had customers who were happy to be staying home. Oh, the simpler days of one market in one season. One of my factories opened both their Vegas show room and their High Point showroom and reported traffic both places. I had another factory that opened their High Point showroom only and had their best Monday at pre-market ever. So what’s it all mean? Well first and foremost it sounds like business is starting to pick up a bit at retail and retailers are in need of some goods. That’s wonderful news.

Second, having two markets at the same time may have gotten one or two more retailers out to see new product, but it is definitely not very good for the industry. The biggest challenge for those selling bigger retailers going to both Vegas and later to October High Point is that many retailers will not review their lineups until after both markets end. Therefore Vegas and High Point add major inefficiencies into the system without any increase in the opportunities to get a new placement. When the markets were quarterly, the retailer would review his lineup after each market. With markets on top of each other there’s just more shows without more decisions.

And here’s the worst part. The markets pay for some large guys to show up. That, one way or another, comes out of the rent which factories pay, and goes into the cost of the product. More inefficiencies that gets put into the cost of the product.

For us reps it is really a squeeze. I rode on the plane with a guy who went to North Carolina first for a command performance at a factory meeting and then he had to go to Vegas for a late market meeting with a customer at another line. We are fortunate because there are two of us who can work with each others customers. I’m not sure how a single rep with multiple lines and two markets will be able to accommodate their customers if this continues. Let me know your thoughts.