What's It Like At the Dallas Gift Market?

Perhaps you'd like to know what it is like to attend one of the major Gift Markets.  We just came back from the Dallas Market and June is one of two times of the year when the entire World Trade Center and the Trade Mart are open to retailers.
Let me tell you first that the Dallas World Trade Center has 14 floors and the Trade Mart has 4 floors.  Not all of these floors are showrooms for gift stores.  Some have showrooms for fine jewelry, for furniture, for garden and outdoor furniture and accessories.  Some have showrooms for the toy and kid markets.  The top 2 floors in the Trade Mart, which is the original building, are for huge lighting companies....a beautiful walk along the aisles and aisles of lights.
So when it comes to the Gift Market, there are probably about 7 floors of showrooms and 3 floors of temporary booths.
A day at the Gift Market is fun, grueling, physically exhausting, exciting, and puzzling.  Of course we are looking for new merchandise which will fit in our store, we are searching for "trends"...whatever might be new and upcoming.  We ask the vendors and showroom reps all sorts of questions:  What are your top 5 best sellers?  How soon will these items ship?  Are there any specials like discounts or free freight?  Can we get a bottle of water, a Coke, a snack...we are hungry, thirsty and tired.  Where is the nearest bathroom?  Where is a chair I can sit down for a few minutes?  What is the best time to go to the cafeteria so that we can avoid the crowds and literally no table to sit down and eat?
Over the 22 years we have attended the Dallas Market, lots has changed.  Frankly, there are less people attending.  The web and loss of sales reps have definitely changed the process of ordering.  We are still the folks who like to look, touch, see and even sometimes smell the merchandise, so attending the Market is an absolute necessity for us.
Today I am going through the orders we placed.  Next time I'll give you a preview of what you might expect to see at Sweet Tooth through the end of 2015.  In the meantime, there's lots of paperwork, adjusting orders and going through catalogues to be done.