The first Grassroots Connect Show drew 90 vendors and about as many independent outdoor specialty retailers to Knoxville, TN last week and some praise from frazzled buyers and reps looking for more efficient ways of doing business.
The show began at 1 p.m. Wednesday when Grassroots Outdoor Association pulled back the divider on the floor of the Knoxville Convention Center to add 29 non-Grassroots vendors to 60 who exhibited at its members-only show over the prior 2.5 days. Grassroots Connect was also opened to buyers from 40 independent retailers selected by Grassroots in a bid to amplify the voice of the specialty retail channel.
Among the non Grassroots vendors invited were Adidas Outdoor, The North Face and Under Armour as well as Garmont, Grand Trunk, Goal Zero, Granite Gear, Mystery Ranch, Osprey, RAB, Sierra Designs and Thule.
Non-Grassroots retailers sending buyers to the show included multi-door retailers such as Alabama Outdoors, Backwoods and Moosejaw Mountaineering as well as Rutabaga's, a Madison, WI paddle sports retailer.
“The Summit and Connect show is just for independent specialty retailers to see as many of our lines in a quiet environment and as soon as possible in the buying cycle,” explained Grassroots President Wes Allen. “They don't want to fly out to a corporate headquarters in November or December or have a rep come to their store in November. They'd rather come to the show to see the lines they know they are going to write.”
The shows, which occur in early to mid-November and June, enable apparel and footwear brands to show their lines to buyers for key independent shops just three weeks into a three-month cycle. While retailers don't write preseason orders at the shows, the meetings do yield insights that can help vendors anticipate market reaction to products featuring new technology, materials or edgier designs and colors that may be too risky for big box retailers.
“The earlier the better and we can get a lot of work done here,” said Bill Dodge, CEO for Garmont North America, a non-Grassroots vendor that attended Grassroots Connect. “Probably 80 percent of the specialty business is here. This means we will be more accurate with our forecasts and production runs.”
Dodge said he had booked more than 40 appointments at the show and sees the potential for Grassroots Connect to replace regional rep show.
Adidas Outdoor booked 73 appointments with about 55 retailers.
“I think we spoke to absolutely the best outdoor retailers in the business,” said Larry Harrison, national sales manager for Agron Inc., the U.S. distributor for Adidas Outdoor. “Rock Creek, Mahoney's Outfitters, Champaign Surplus, Travel Country, Elephant Perch, Ute Mountaineering, J&H Lanmark, Alpine Shop. That was just the first day. And today was far more eventful.”
Adidas Outdoor launched a rental program and a pro deal program at the show aimed specifically at independent retailers. The rental program seeks to persuade retailers to begin adding apparel and footwear to their rental fleets. The pro deal program would award a $100 coupon for Adidas product to retail employees on their first anniversary of employment with a shop.
“Brands are cutting back on pro deal programs and we wanted to reward people for being employed for a year with the same shop,” Harrison said.
Grassroots Connect will save reps at Outdoor Sports Marketing hundreds of miles of driving, said Rion Smith, a principal in the Hendersonville, NC agency that represents SmartWool, Vasque, Cascade Designs and Osprey.
“Osprey not being a GOA member we will be able to see those customers here instead of having to drive to all of them. This is our most productive show, because we the have largest network of specialty retailers in the Southeast.”
Ryan Krusemark, sales manager for Salt Lake City-based Kuhl, said tagging 2.5 more days on to the Grassroots Summit was well worth it.
“Last year after the GOA show ended I drove three hours through a blizzard to see two accounts,” said Kruzemark. “It took me two days. This year with Connect we saw 28 accounts, those 28 included the two I saw last year. It was a great use of our time and resources.”
Harrison said the format of the show, which cloaked all booths behind black curtains, only helped set it off from the Outdoor Retailer shows, that occur after most apparel brand's deadlines for preseason orders.
“I feel that you lose some sense of community doing a show like this behind the curtain,” Harrison said. “But it also shows why a show like this is an adjunct and not a substitute for Outdoor Retailer.”
While Grassroots shows provide unparalleled access to brand executives, it does not offer the kind of spontaneous discovery afforded by the New Exhibitor Pavilion at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market.
Grassroots retailers emphasize they have no ambitions of competing against Outdoor Retailer, which generates more than half of Outdoor Industry Association's operating budget. Indeed, the two trade associations began working more formally this year to develop training programs for independent retailers.
What Grassroots is intent on doing is amplifying the voice of specialty retail at a time of rising competition from big box and pure-play online retailers, department stores and even the brand's direct sales channels.
“I expressed some skepticism that Grassroots Connect might hurt the Outdoor Retailer show,” said Rod Johnson, owner of Midwest Mountaineering, a Grassroots retailer that operates a store in Minneapolis. “But on the flip side, it will increase the influence of specialty. Grassroots can say what vendors come and what retailers come. If we decide you are not doing something good for specialty outdoor retail, we won't invite you. That's power.”
Grassroots will hold its second Grassroots Connect show June 15-17 in Albuquerque, NM in conjunction with its spring Grassroots Summit.
