8.18.07

Day one of the show and I am quickly into my “Screw this show thing, I’m only doing retail from now on,”  of course that will quickly change when I get a run of people placing orders, but until that happens . . . It’s that strange thing.  Every show, and I think I am well over 20 or so, it’s the same, you either have no one in your booth and you are ready to quit, or you have people witing to write orders and you are having the time of your life. I should really track these things.  

I’m sure it won’t be much of a guess which end of the scale I am on right now as I sit here typing away.  It's coming up on noon right now, and I am only one order into the day, a few cards given out, some people in and out of the booth.  This of course makes me want to re-arrange the whole booth, see what magical combination of product catches the eye enough for people to come in.  Through the course of the show, I will have moved everything in my booth at least once, if not more.  I actually find it to be an interesting thing – why people react to things in a particular way verses another arrangement.

Well case in point:  it's now over three hours later and I have been quite busy glad-handing exchanging cards and writing orders.  We have instituted new rules for this market that should hopefully make things easier for us.  Our minimum order is now $500 for opening orders (as in new customers) and a minimum re-order of $250 (for existing customers).  We always had a minimum order for new customers, but it was only $500, and we never had a re-order minimum.  So we would get orders for one $25 vase.  Who orders one $25 vase.  Maybe you could step up and order two $25 vases?  It’s not even worth the buyer’s time once they have sold the one $25 vase they ordered, to look up and see who they bought it from, what it cost them, write up an order, phone and fax it in for another $25 vase.  Half an hour later and that $25 vase has cost them $50 in work time.  So I guess what I am saying is, out of the goodness of our heart we are trying to save those $25 single vase ordering people money by having them order more.  We give, what can I say.

So now it is the end of the day, traffic is still pretty good, and I am about to close up and head out.  We had our best day yet at the New York show, so that’s a good thing.  Some new clients, some old, some new products in our line, some old.  All in all a good day for Bjorling & Grant.  Now it's the nice walk back to the hotel, a gorgeous sunny day, meet up again with Vince and Vincent for dinner, then back to the hotel and off to bed.

Day two was a decent enough day.  It’s the same day that the Javits Center opens up, so most people head over there initially and then after an initial run through, all bets are off and everyone goes all over the place.  So by the end of the day I had a perfectly average day.  

Day three, there was still traffic, all though more on and off. I was talking to quite a few people, but not writing orders.  Then from 4pm on, people were few and far between.  After all was said and done, day three was not a stellar order-writing day.  

Day four, and it’s around 10.30 and people are starting to come through, although no orders written as of yet.  It's around this stage of the show that everyone likes to set in and start figuring out the market.  “People are all at Javits,”  “There are too many show,”  “buyers are nervous,”  “my shoes were untied.”  Some of the reasons probably have elements of truth, others are sort of swinging in the dark.  I think in general there are more ways to buy things these days.  Between more shows to go to, the internet, and a slower buying public, the buying market has been diluted, so the shows are just going to be a little slower.  That’s in part why I like still having half of my inventory be one of a kind things.  Your competition is much smaller and people know that they have to buy the one of a kind pieces right away, otherwise, they are all gone (that was my own little passive-aggressive blog sales pitch).

Day five was good, all be it half of the numbers we put up were from one client, it was still our second best day and made the show a pretty good one.  All that on a short day – the show ends at 3pm today and then the mass chaos of breakdown begins.

Surprisingly, breakdown went relatively well and I got out around 8.30, went back to the hotel, for the first time ordered room service, got a poached egg sandwich with bacon and fries, a couple beers and off to bed.  

Next day to the airport, got the upgrade, made fun of everyone walking past into coach class and arrived home safe and sound.

I retrospect, the show was good, had some decent enough numbers in orders and made some good contacts.  As usual in New York there were good meals – a nice Italian small course and cold plate place, a great vegetarian Indian restaurant in the Indian district, one of the best Chinese meals I have had at a place called Olies (strange name for a Chinese restaurant), good Thai, a nice Japanese meal, and the afore-mentioned poached egg sandwich (my own design technically).  So from a gustatory standpoint, it was a great show.

Now we are preparing for the big move from our existing space to our new space around 7 miles away.  More on that later.