Monday, December 14, 2015

Trade Show Renaissance

An economic crash is coming, and the trade shows we have support the old, false economy.  Just as everything else has been bidden up in the false economy, so has trade show space.

Also, another kind of trade show has simply disappeared, the terminal markets.  Flower dealers were up at 2 am to receive the flowers from growers to be auctioned off at 5 am.  So with meat and produce.  Spot prices everyday.  Markets cleared every day.  With "get big or get out" came "take it or leave it" and the death of small business relationships.

When this yet 40 year hellish experiment ends, we'll have a renaissance in small business, and a return to spot auction markets to clear the produce of the countless small growers who will be trying to make a living locally.

Mega-shows will break back down to regional shows, and retailers will need to clear not only the inventory of te new, but the old and used.  Powell's did this first in Portland with books 40 years ago, first to see where hegemon policies would lead, but as Home Deport dies local hardware stores will re-emerge selling not only new, but used and liquidated goods as well.

If you cannot start a wholesale level business, think retail.  Location location location is key, but you'll get it cheap soon.  Don't market online, it is a waste of time, just use the net, for as long as it lasts, as an electronic yellow pages listing.  And everyone who says something nice about you ask them to repeat it on yelp.

The USA is not over, but this economic phase is.  Divide and conquer:  don't get into the coming brawl the hegemon will sponsor with groups fighting over scraps of handouts from the dwindling economy.  There are mountains of unsold inventory to move, there will be new and better needing markets discovered.

If your definition of wealth is personal accumulation, then you will condemned to join the ever more vicious fight for a share of the dwindling reserves, from Boeing to the trailer mom and her seven dwarves.  If your definition of wealth is the ver widening goods and services offered at falling prices available to an ever widening group of people with from their own earnings, then you know what to do the next forty years.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


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