Yes it’s trade show season once again. Late winter and early spring bring a plethora of trade shows to choose from. From big to small, from basic to elaborate, they’re every where, and they’re a big part of our business. We attend from five to ten shows a year, depending on location, timing and what they have to offer us. We have found many new items and many new ideas at these shows over the years that keep our inventory fresh, exciting, and help us keep on top of the latest industry news.
            So just what goes on at these trade shows? Why do we keep going? Where are they held? What are all the great inside secrets of trade shows? Well I can only speak for myself, and I have gone to so many shows in my 21 years of hardware experience that I cannot even begin to count them. So here’s what I know.
            When we get to trade show, we enter the convention center and that’s when the fun begins, with dancing girls, free flowing cocktails, lots of good-old-boy joking around. Then after we’re all plastered we go around and place thousand of dollars worth of orders, and the vendors take us all out for a wild night on the town. Yeah, right. That only happens in 1960’s Hollywood versions of trade shows. Reality is far from that.
            A typical trade show involves traveling half way across the country. Cities try hard to attract shows because they do bring in millions of dollars of revenue to the host city. Shows move around often to make it a little fairer and to try and attract more buyers from all over. A modern convention center is a huge building. They can swallow thousands of show booths and still have room to fly a Cessna 152 around inside. Miles of walking are involved just to get from one end to the other. I will accumulate anywhere from 20-40 pounds of catalogs and drag them around behind me all day long. I will talk with hundreds of sales reps, manufacturer’s reps and technical support people. At the end of the day my feet, back and brain are really tired.
            What do I see? Lots of things. New items are always at the forefront with all vendors. They will show us what’s new for next season, what’s projected to sell well, and what the forecasted trends will be. Seasonal items are also very important as we buy things six to eight months in advance of when we want them. Often there will be more than one version of a new item and the manufactures are looking for input from the stores, especially on packaging or marketing.
            What do I learn? Many things as well. There are seminars every day that help us in all aspects of our business, from running our computers, to managing our inventory, to advertising and human relations. Some are brief, some are intense, but there’s always something good to come out of these meetings. I also learn a lot from talking with other stores. We all share similar problems and challenges and when we all get together to discuss them we can often come away with fresh new ideas to make our stores run better.
            Are there super secrets at these shows? Yes and no. No, they won’t let just anyone in, because they do want to keep the integrity of the wholesale information. But you’re not missing out on that much. Yes we do get some really good prices from time to time, and those mean better retails and better sales for all of you. Yes we discuss s few other things that we’d rather not share, but this is not top secret, high security stuff for the most part.
            Frankly I’m a bit surprised that trade shows are still such a huge part of the global business world. Fifteen years ago I predicted that by now there would be very few shows and most of what we did at trade shows would be done via computer, somehow. I was wrong. Shows keep getting bigger and bigger. I guess that’s speaks to the fact that a face to face meeting of buyer and seller still has so much more going for it than a phone call or e-mail. That problems get resolved, information shared, and knowledge gained at such a high rate at these shows year after year means that they will go on for a long time. They’re a lot of work and a lot of expense, but a worthwhile investment for all.
            That’s what I know about (trade) show business.