To Market, To Market

To Market, To Market to buy..............what? 
It's June and June is Gift Market time.  We attend the Gift Market in Dallas and we figure that this somewhere around the 50th time we have been to the Dallas Market.
I have memorized every pit stop along the way.  I continue to dread the potential highway repairs, the crazy drivers (apologies, apologies) in the Dallas area and the potential heat wave that always seems to happen about this time in Dallas.
Over the years less people are attending the Dallas Market and one of the issues we are dealing with at this time is large showrooms shutting down because of the expense involved in keeping that showroom up year around.
I also think that showrooms are closing because more and more people are willing to forgo the actual experience of looking, touching, talking about the item they are about to purchase to simply going online and ordering it.
We come from the "old school":  we want to see the lines we are purchasing.  We want to ask questions and discuss each line with a sales rep who knows the line.  We actually want to make sure that our store is filled with candy and gifts we can be proud to sell and not junk.
Over the past 21 years we have seen retail change a lot.  The value of working with a competent sales rep is not the same.  Understandably so, since most sales reps have to pay for all their expenses...they are generally not salaried.  It is a lot less expensive to work from home, on the computer or making phone calls than to pay what is now $3.44 a gallon to drive around to retail stores.
Oklahoma is even more problematic because we have so many small towns and often times, sales reps orders are smaller when working with a store in a small town.  Make sense?
Nonetheless, off we go to Market.  The physical exertion of walking the floors in the Dallas Trade Mart and World Trade Center can be exhausting.  Yet if we find one great item...something we know will be different from what other stores are carrying, it will be worth the effort.
Wish us "happy hunting!!"