Christian retailers convened Wednesday, Jan. 8, for the first CPE at AmericasMart held in conjunction with the Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market. The one-day event hosted by Munce Group, the Florida-based retail marketing group, helped to make navigating the gift show easier for Christian retailers and brought in non-gift vendors as well to make time away from the store more productive.

Kirk Blank, president of Munce Group, said that vendor spaces were sold out with 28 of them setting up shop. Exhibitors attending CPE included Abingdon Press/Common English Bible, Anchor Distributors/Whitaker House, Art & Soul Works/Gifts That Give Back, Barbour Publishing, Bob Siemon Designs, Bookstore Manager, Bridgestone Multimedia Group, Charisma Media, Christian Art Gifts, Crossway, DaySpring, FaithWords, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Kerusso, New Day Christian Distributors, New Leaf Publishing Group, Rose Publishing, Send the Light Distribution, Swanson Christian Products and WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Retail participation, however, was not as strong as Munce would have liked at the inaugural one-day CPE.

 “We were encouraged by our vendors and encouraged by retailers to put something together so that there would be a common place to meet, a common place for publishers and non-gift vendors to be a part of and have it at one place that wouldn’t interfere with the regular flow of the mart,” Blank said. “So we worked with the mart to determine that Wednesday would be the best day for that, so we’re still in the process of figuring, is that the right decision, is that the right timing? Soon as we’re done with the show and get feedback, we’re going to figure that out. We are already set for July. We’re going to be here as the mart kicks off, again another Wednesday event, Wednesday before the show, so we’re looking forward to it.”

 At CPE’s breakfast, retailers learned how to navigate the vast space that is AmericasMart from Albert Maslia, managing director-retail services for the mart. With 2,000 permanent showrooms and 4,000 temporaries, Maslia said it would take a full year to go through it all if buyers spent an average of 15 minutes per showroom. 

At lunch, which was sponsored by Whitaker House and Anchor Distributors, Lorraine Valk, owner of Parable Christian Store of St. Joseph in St. Joseph, Mich., spoke on the importance of Just In Time inventory and of maintaining inventory turns at three on most products. Valk, who joked about being married to a CPA, gave retailers specific numbers to look for and encouraged the practice of daily ordering. She said she orders every morning and it’s the “best 15 minutes of my day.”

Lee Yeckel, sales director for Whitaker House and Anchor Distributors, also spoke at lunch, noting that Whitaker is taking on new authors and new genres with a line of business books and African-American fiction titles. Yeckel said the company is also changing the way bargain book promotions are handled.

The company is also inviting retailers to register to win a Bahamas vacation. Retailers could register at AmericasMart or at CharacterInLeadership.com. Four people will win a five-day, four-night stay at a luxury resort there.

A number of the exhibitors spoke to Christian Retailing about encouraging Munce Group in this new effort.

“We’re basically here just to support the Munce Group and to talk to the stores that have showed up at the gift mart,” said Diane Rogers, sales territory manager who handles international and Spanish sales for Whitaker House and Anchor Distributors. “We’ve already made some new contacts.”

Nola Haney, sales manager at Barbour Publishing, said: “We think it’s a good idea and hopefully with more publicity, more advertising and getting the word out, it’ll grow and be a better show. We look forward to July [9-10 when the next CPE at AmericasMart is scheduled].”

Steven Ammons, head of sales department at Bookstore Manager, was looking to fill at specific need at CPE.

“We’re actually adding more gift vendors to our database, so it’s a way for us to connect with the stores and get an idea of what gift vendors they’re carrying so that we can expand our database to help our retailers,” Ammons said.

This year buyers saw some technological advances at AmericasMart, which made the show more convenient. Buyers could take advantage of new, free Wi-Fi and a mobile app available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.  

The introduction of the app follows more than two years of research, design and development to create a digital environment scaled to the needs and demands of buyers and sellers doing business across the 14 annual markets at AmericasMart’s 7.1 million-square-foot campus.

Another addition was a built-in augmented reality scanner, which allowed buyers to connect to exhibitor information, pinpoint their location on campus, and add exhibitors and events from on-campus printed materials and signage to their plan scheduling tool.

• Prev
• Next