Every January a handful of the BWD crew goes down to Atlanta to display our wears and press the flesh at The BirdWatch America trade show. We've attended every one of these events since the show started in New Hampshire in the late 1980s. The basic concept of the show is that manufacturers and distributors set up and buyers for stores (wild bird stores, hardware stores, nature centers, etc) come buy to shop. It's not open to the public, hence the name "trade" show.
We used to sell a lot of booklets and books at BirdWatch America, and we still sell a significant amount, but over the years, as the wild bird industry has matured, a variety of distributors have come on the scene offering store buyers the convenience of shopping for a range of products all at once, year-round. Now most of the wholesale sales of BWD's products happens through these distributors.
Still the show is really useful for us to gauge trends, to network, and, perhaps most importantly, to see our friends and colleagues in the industry.
0 comments:
Post a Comment