On our last road trip we were at Road to California. Road was celebrating its twentieth year. Like all shows it is affected by the increase
in the number of shows that exist around the country. Fortunately, Road comes early in the year and
many have not attended a show for several months. Caroline does an outstanding job of
advertising the show and the result is Road is well attended. The weather in Southern California in late
January is mild. There were high winds one
day that caused a bit of concern in the Pavilion (tent in any other language)
But the Santa Anna winds blow every year in the winter time. It is after all sunny Southern California.
Like every business Road is seeking ways to grow their
business. They have chosen several
avenues. Last two years they added the
Pavilion. This allowed them to give some
vendors more space; Quilter’s Rule picked up 5 feet which has aided us in our
presentation. Road was able to add some
vendors. Their business grew.
This year Road added the Marketplace! So what is the Marketplace? Most importantly
to the other vendors, it was comprised of vendors one would normally only see
if you attended Quilt Market in Houston and they were not selling product out
of their booth. Revenue grew for Road but
not competition between vendors for dollars.
So I stopped in and talked with a few Marketplace vendors
to find out what they were thinking about when they decided to come to Road. I also observed what was happening in the
interaction between customers and Marketplace vendors. And I have thought about a lot of
possibilities for the future. But that
is for the future after more careful thought.
Our industry is supposed to work by many manufacturers
selling to a few distributors and those distributors selling to many stores and
stores selling to the consumers. For
simplicity I will not address the myriad of variations on that obsolete theme. Product education is supposed to happen at
all levels. But we have all played the
game where you whisper a comment to the person next to you and it goes around a
circle and comes back to you. Education for
the consumer at the store level is after a lot of whispers. What I saw was manufacturers educating the
consumer directly. The consumer was
seeing and hearing things they might not otherwise see or hear. This is great because for manufacturers,
sometimes the information gets lost in the whispers between manufactures and consumers.
At Road this year some of the whispers were first hand facts.
When I talked with the Marketplace vendors, each of them
said the same thing; they were there to educate the public. Yes they were sending the consumer to stores
that were selling the product they were demonstrating. Most importantly they were showing people
things they had not previously seen.
Do I see problems?
You bet your life. But not one of
them is a problem that will hurt the industry.
I see the possibility of improvement for everyone. I hope the Marketplace vendors will return
next year and that there will be more of them.
Great job Caroline.
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