HIGH POINT — In an effort to keep Premarket from draining attendance to the spring and fall High Point Markets, event sponsors have agreed to several new policies aimed at returning Premarket to its original intent prior to the pandemic. These include limiting the length of the event and the number of room nights covered by exhibitors sponsoring those guests.
For many years in the past, dealers would come to Premarket to preview product about a month before the April and October markets. However, nearly all those dealers would return to the main event to make commitments on those goods and also see other product from a much wider exhibitor mix.
Dealer habits began to change during the pandemic, most notably at the September 2020 and April 2021 Premarket events. Both had record attendance levels from dealers as well as record numbers of exhibitors.
In April, for example, there were 337 exhibitors including 20 sponsoring exhibitors. The latter typically pay hotel room nights for a group of invited guests, including larger retailers with significant buying power. Pre-pandemic, only about a third that number of exhibitors would be open at Premarket.
Last September, there were about 300 dealers in town for the event, and this past April there were about 500 dealers in town, compared with a more typical 100 to 120. Prepandemic, as many as 98% of those dealers would return to a regular April or October market.
In October 2020, only 70% to 75% of those dealers at Premarket returned to see sponsoring exhibitor, while a smaller number of uninvited retailers were said to have not returned to market, officials said. This past April, Premarket also extended to as many as seven days as some dealers began shopping the Tuesday or Wednesday before the following Monday and Tuesday official dates.
Officials also noted that more dealers came to Premarket the past two cycles to avoid larger crowds at the regular market. But officials don’t want that becoming habit in the future, particularly now that many people have been vaccinated and now that mask and social distancing requirements also have eased.
“Many dealers treated Premarket as their one and only trip for a market cycle,” said Doug Bassett, chairman of the Premarket committee overseeing the event. “The October market is the first opportunity we have to get people back into their normal shopping behavior.”
To somewhat deemphasize Premarket and encourage dealers to return to the spring and fall markets, officials are shortening the event two days, Sept. 13 and 14. The sponsors group also is only covering the cost of rooms for guests on Sunday and Monday. In the past, some coming in from further distances — say the West Coast — received four or more room nights.
Officials said it is important that dealers return to market, not only to see product they may have missed from the sponsors and non-sponsors open at Premarket, but also to see product from all 1,600 exhibitors open at a typical market.
“We are not trying to issue an edict here on how dealers behave,” Bassett said. “But we want to educate dealers that the April and October events are literally the goose that laid the golden egg. It is when every showroom is open and when every showroom is market-ready. And it is really those two events — the April and October markets — that determine whether a dealer or an exhibitor looks back on the cycle and says “yes, I need to go back to High Point six months from now.””
At sponsor showrooms in particular, buyers attending Premarket can often see most if not all the product that will be shown in April or October due the sponsors’ commitment to be as close to market-ready as possible. While product availability in September may be affected by container availability and supply chain disruptions, it’s anticipated that most of the new product will be here by the October market.
Bassett noted that September will also be a unique Premarket event in that it comes only 14 weeks after the June 5-9 market, not to mention a Las Vegas Market in between.
“Every sponsor is going to make an effort to be ready, but this is a unique Premarket because the previous market didn’t happen until June and then you have got the Las Vegas Market in August,” he said. “We have never had such a compressed schedule, and we have never had such a mess with containers and the ships that are bringing in the vast majority of introductions.
“So the (market-ready) policy may not have changed, but the reality is that every sponsor and non-sponsor is dealing with once-in-a-career challenges to get their products over here and accurately predict when it’s going to arrive.”
Therefore, officials note, seeing the full product mix from all exhibitors is another reason dealers need to come back to the October market.
“The dealer who is mistakenly coming to Premarket to replace market is really getting a horrible deal,” Bassett added. “They are likely only seeing a fourth of the showrooms they can see at market. Many of the showrooms also are not market-ready or are missing product that would be there five weeks later, and they come away with a bad taste in their mouths because they don’t feel they were taken care of well.”
Tom Conley, CEO of the High Point Market Authority pointed out that many people incorrectly believe that the same services are available at both Premarket and Market. That is not the case. Shuttle buses around town and to-and-from local airports are only available during Market. Similarly educational and entertainment events that many have come to expect are only available at Market, not Premarket.
Buyers attending the regular market receive all that and more, depending on the types of programs and services — not to mention celebrity guest appearances —offered at market. Officials also noted that unlike a regular market, buyers don’t register for Premarket and thus don’t need a badge to enter various buildings in the market district.
Conley noted that as valuable as Premarket can be in terms of introducing buyers to new product, it was never designed to compete with or supplant the entire market experience.
“Any trade show or market is the sum of its total experience for the buyer,” Conley added. “And different buyers have different experiences, which is why there is so much variety at a typical market in terms of exhibits, food, entertainment and product. Premarket was designed to be an introduction of product in a casual fashion so that a select number of dealers can see that product. Perhaps some will make a commitment. But at the very least, they will return to market and be able to make a solid commitment so the manufacturer-seller can get a head start on his cuttings to make that product so it can be delivered in a timely fashion.”
Officials noted that due to the disruption the pandemic caused to market schedules in 2020 and this year, the September Premarket and October market will be the first normal market cycle in two years. Thus, it represents a chance for exhibitors and buyers a like to return to the sense of normalcy they had experienced before the pandemic.
“I think Premarket is a great thing and that Premarket will continue, but we have all admitted to the fact that the COVID-19 experience has changed things, and to a certain extent we would like to see it go back to the way it was,” Conley said.
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June 22, 2021 at 03:03AM
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High Point Premarket sponsors revise some event policies - Furniture Today
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