What does it take?
Before I worked in retail, I often wondered what it took to get products into a store and ready for customer purchase. I didn’t really understand what a process it is to accomplish this task. Once I began working for The Potpourri House and became a buyer for the products in our store the mystery was revealed!
You don’t just show up at a market and start buying! There is a ton of prep work that goes into a market trip. We primarily attend market in Dallas Texas at the world trade center. There are 4 sections of the Dallas market. There is a building called the Trade Mart and it was the destination of the John F. Kennedy motorcade in 1963 where he was scheduled to speak to a sold-out luncheon. The Trade Mart is comprised of one million square feet. The next building is Market Hall where most of the temporary vendors come to show their products to retail buyers. Trade Mart has 202,000 square feet of display space. The main building is called The World Trade Center or WTC. WTC consists of 15 floors and 3.1 million square feet of mostly permanent showrooms. The final building is called Interior Home & Design Center or IHDC for short. A 440,000 square foot marketplace with two floors of showrooms serving retailers and interior designers. The first floor, redeveloped in 2017, includes dozens of home décor showrooms from leading manufacturers and is open daily. The second floor features showrooms for floral, holiday, and gifts. That is a ton of square footage and can be overwhelming.
Before we even leave for market, there is a considerable amount of time spent planning budgets and analyzing our inventory. We examine our current inventory and what our needs are. There are multiple reports run and looked over and over and over. Lists are written, appointments are made with vendors, and hotel accommodations are secured.
- This is a small glimpse of the prep prior to market. Our next blog will be a day in the life of a market buyer. Make sure to come back and check it out.
