18-19_GF.qxp_Grid 06/08/2021 12:16 Page 2
OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
Every summer, thrill seekers head to amusement parks for a chance to ride the fastest, tallest and scariest rollercoasters. The wind racing, the tracks rumbling, the inverted loops and stomach-churning drops; all of it gets our blood pumping and adrenaline flowing. Actually, the aforementioned sounds a bit like life of an indie retailer these last few months, with PG Live 2021 and Harrogate Home & Gift having gone ahead as real trade shows having added to the exhilarating ride back to normality!
Rollercoaster Retailing While maybe not making my heart race to quite the same level as a day trip to Disneyland or Alton Towers the prospect of returning to trade shows certainly got my pulse racing and my temperature raised. Part of the fun of rollercoasters or theme parks is the anticipation of what is to come. The not knowing how the ride will make you feel. Where the speed or drop will throw your senses and similarly after 17 months away from shows I can say we were ready and eager to return. Against a backdrop of changing Covid restrictions, Brexit, supply issues and rising costs due to massive shipping increases, what would the shows actually be like? Would they return triumphant or was it still a bit too soon? Would they be worth the effort and return on investment? Who would have launched the latest ‘must have’ range? In truth I didn’t have the answers and neither did the organisers of PG Live or Harrogate Home & Gift, but what I did know is that there was an appetite for actually seeing product and interacting face to face. For us in the North East of Scotland going to shows is a big commitment, both in terms of cost and time and they are not holidays (despite what staff often think!). They are essential fact-finding missions that need to sustain the business for the weeks and months to come. Harrogate Home & Gift and then PG Live effectively ran back to back this year with lots of excitement and buzz around 18
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
them both. Pre-Covid we have never missed a Harrogate show - it is my favourite gift show - as this is where I usually find something a little different on the gift front. It has always been a show that has a kind of summer festival vibe, where everyone is more relaxed and somehow doing business felt more enjoyable with the annual visits to Brio and other great restaurants in the town making it an all the more fun annual pilgrimage. We had booked our hotel last year in anticipation that this pandemic would surely have been past, but a week before the show we decided to pull out, partly as some of our notable gift suppliers had decided not to exhibit in the end. For us it is a four-day commitment with travel and with the companies that didn’t show we decided it would not be worth it. We also had to consider the timing with it being right on Freedom Day! I emailed the organisers directly a few times without a response but then received a call back from Russell Rule, show director for which I respect him, at what must have been a busy and nervous time for him and his team. I fully appreciate how difficult it
Above: Retailing is somewhat akin to being on a rollercoaster right now. Left: The very thought of the return to trade shows raised David Robertson’s temperature in excitement! Below: A sunny scene from Harrogate Home & Gift show this year.
was for them to be first out of the gate. To get there was in itself an achievement. And we will be back next year! My mum and I spent that weekend wondering if we were missing out. It felt a bit like when you turned down a night out for a reason that you were not entirely convinced about and then spent the next few hours suffering from FOMO (as the kids say). That fear of missing out, that fear of maybe not seeing or discovering the next big thing is real and interestingly enough when stock arrived this week from companies we would normally order from at the show there were disappointments in terms of the size and quality of finish. Nothing beats a hands-on experience, you just can’t replace actually seeing what you are buying. Zoom, Teams or brochures will never really do a product justice. Similarly, the human element of a good salesperson or owner cannot be beaten when they tell you about product. The role of salespeople and agents has been questioned often in the last few years, but I do really believe that Covid has highlighted the need for the right people to be in place to sell and keep you up to date.