Powered By Blogger

vrijdag 13 augustus 2010

IPCPR 2010 New Orleans

Just Back from the Trade Show in New Orleans, for me it was the 3th time to go to New Orleans, the first time was a couple of years ago just before Katrina destroyed Nola and in 2009 and now,

I wasn't planning to go but on the last moment to many people where asking me to come over so i couldn't say no, well i don't regret going i did great business,
all in all i think that i sold .... cigars, the number i want to keep for myself
but i can tell i am more then happy.

thing is that a lot projects are taking place over the next months into next year
so the real number is hard to say.

for a private label manufacturer its always nice if people are looking for you and
what makes me even more happy is if my clients are doing well, if they do well we do well.

As expected the show attendance was low, not to many retailers took the time to come to New Orleans and the all over attendance compared to 2009 was at least 25% less,
what surprised me was the fact that the booth from companies like General cigar where packed, maybe the free food & drinks where atracting people but the booth was packed on the first and second day, the reason i was surprised is that a lot of retailers seem to hate doing business witg General, why ... the reason lays in the fact that general is owned by the swedish match / STG group who is also owner of cigars international a Bath - PA based internet retailer (discounter)
the complain of many retailers is that a lot of products sold by General cigar on the US market can be found frequently for close to wholesale prices on the Cigars International website, and this i really a pain in the A.. of the retailers,
so i was really surprised to see the General booth packed.

On this way General will continue doing what they are doing, well done retailers, keep buying from General Cigar.

Not my problem at the end of the day, but i would have a retail store i wouldn't buy from them anymore, that i can tell.

the food as always was great in Nola and i had some nice night going out with friends,
i was also invited by Ashton to join one of their dinners, which was really nice
all in all i had a great show (without having a booth) and i think that my show results are much better then the average company who spended a lot of money to have booth's and staff present at the show.

Geen opmerkingen:

Een reactie posten