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 TRADE SHOWS: SALES GRIDLOCK

The CGTA trade show will, in 4 short days, generate more sales than in the following 5 months for most wholesalers!

Many wholesalers and sales representatives will generate 60% to 70% of their sales at this event. Now think about that.  If 4 days generates 70% of this business, it begs the question, what is going on the rest of the year?

Some find it difficult to believe the trade shows represent such a wildly disproportionate source of revenues. But if you don’t understand this huge bottleneck, you can’t get out of the traffic jam and on the road to bigger sales.

In this post we’ll look at data provided by retailers with corroborating results from wholesalers. 

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.  

BESTSELLERS GET THE BUZZ…but it’s the boring products that drive your sales.

“What are your best-sellers?”  Almost everybody in the CGTA wants to know the “top 10”.  The fact is, the relative importance of best-sellers is greatly exaggerated.

We’ve all heard the mantra, 80% of sales originate from 20% of products.  The rule of the bestsellers.  It's widely quoted...yet it simply does not exist in practical terms…and it is so easy to identify that it’s a little disconcerting many CGTA players often quote this false statistic.