TRENDS: CAN YOU SPOT THEM?

Trends are an important part of our industry.  And "Market Pulse" published by the CGTA is a great source to understand sales trends.  But you need to know how to interpret it.  We’ll show you how in this blog.  

All vendors face long production lead times (4 to 6 months), so they simply can’t spot a
trend today and then have it ready for delivery tomorrow.   They need to anticipate trends.   

Consequently wholesalers have no choice but to take a guess about the future.  And basically what they need to do is determine whether a category is growing or declining.

 

If a wholesaler anticipates that fewer retailers are purchasing a product category, they will produce fewer products.  No one wants to be stuck with inventory and few potential customers.

On the other hand, if a wholesaler senses the number of retailers interested in a category is growing it may produce more merchandise in anticipation of higher demand. You don’t want to miss out on sales.

The ability to identify trends is important...lots of money is at stake.  How do you predict growing or declining categories? 

CGTA RETAILERS’ SATISFACTION WITH NEW PRODUCTS PLUMMET…vendors offering new collections rewarded.

The recent CGTA annual report ominously warned, “Buyers who were very satisfied with new product introductions fell … to 26 per cent.”

Basically 75% of retailers are unhappy with the main reason you are a wholesaler..to bring them new products they can sell.   

And as we noted here, retailers rank wholesalers as a bigger problem than big-box retailers.    

The report sadly added,  “Research conducted with attendees… demonstrated that the number one reason retailers attend gift shows is to find new products.  However, this is the one area buyers continue to find disappointing.    Approximately 85 per cent of buyers that attend the gift shows agree they want to see more new product introductions.

In this post we’ll show you how one wholesaler,  after several years of flat sales, re-vitalized their business by focusing on new product development.  And as an added bonus they were also able to reduce their overall inventory levels as well.

More products and lower inventories…now that’s how you compete!

CGTA RETAILERS VS THE MAJORS

We love CGTA retailers. They're an amazing group of independent small-business people.  

In our opinion they are a misunderstood group.  We also sense they greatly under-estimate themselves!

Coming off the trade shows, many of the retailers we spoke with complained about the big-box stores like HOMESENSE… despite the fact they actually perform as well as HOMESENSE.

 

In this post we’ll look at how effectively CGTA retailers are competing against the majors. 

CGTA RETAILERS: AMAZING STABILITY

The Spring CGTA trade show is upon us.

And the most common greeting, at least among sales people, will be “How’s the show for you?”

This of course, will spark replies in the narrow range from, “it seems flat”, to “not as good as previous years” and similar lackluster comments.

The reality is that sales in the CGTA are remarkably stable.