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It's a Big Small World

Caroline Kennedy -- Gifts and Dec, 7/23/2011 5:36:38 AM

Caroline KennedyWe regularly discuss what a global industry we are; the majority of our products are manufactured overseas in places like China, Vietnam, India and the Philippines ... International buyers shop our trade shows - New York, Atlanta, Dallas, High Point, Las Vegas, LA, Chicago - and our buyers, both shopkeeper and vendor, walk the aisles of foreign trade shows - Frankfurt, Paris, Birmingham, Hong Kong, Delhi, Taiwan, Manila - sourcing new product lines and ideas. Ethnic motifs and other cultural elements regularly migrate across borders and oceans to influence design and lifestyle trends on an ever-rapidly evolving basis. We trade editors travel beyond our borders to report on other markets to provide our audience at home a perspective on what is going on elsewhere in the world of our industry.
     And that's the kicker - three words, "audience at home"! Although we look at the marketplace on the wholesale side globally, we view our audience locally... at least until now.
     This year's Retailer Excellence Awards competition was an eye-opening experience as to realizing our global reach. Although we have had entries - and even a finalist - from our Canadian cousins north of the border, we have never, at least in my memory (and that's a long time), had entries from overseas. This year we did, and from two different continents - Europe and Africa! Amazing! One of those entries is even a finalist, showing that there are great gift and decorative accessories retailers everywhere deserving of the same recognition that we accord our retailers here at home.
     It also illustrates the amazing impact modern technology has had on how we all communicate and do business, and how it has expanded out ability to reach out beyond our traditional trading area - something that you vendors and retailers have been taking advantage of for some time. But, silly me! It never dawned on me that our publication was expanding its reach like this - to touch retailers in other parts of the world.
     I learn something new every day, and that makes it a good day.

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