We asked three consumer executives who had just returned from two important January 2024 tradeshows, to share their observations (on product trends, consumer behaviors, sourcing-, buyer-, and marketing shifts) and their outlook for 2024.
Laurie Gilner (President/CEO of Transpac Brands and exhibitor at Atlanta Market among others), Rick Haase (Founder/CEO of Patina Stores and its chief buyer), and Bob Watson (SVP of Link Companies representing dozens of brands that make their way to retail shelves) shared their thoughts, discussed, and provided insights that can help other consumer product leaders plan and optimize their 2024 growth strategy.
Growth never happens in a vacuum. All of us together are smarter than any of us alone.
We asked three consumer executives who had just returned from two important January 2024 tradeshows, to share their observations (on product trends, consumer behaviors, sourcing-, buyer-, and marketing shifts) and their outlook for 2024.
Laurie Gilner (President/CEO of Transpac Brands and exhibitor at Atlanta Market among others), Rick Haase (Founder/CEO of Patina Stores and its chief buyer), and Bob Watson (SVP of Link Companies representing dozens of brands that make their way to retail shelves) shared their thoughts, discussed, and provided insights that can help other consumer product leaders plan and optimize their 2024 growth strategy.
Growth never happens in a vacuum. All of us together are smarter than any of us alone.
Welcome to the third growth option podcast, where we talk with business leaders and innovators hungry to drive growth that can be faster than internal organic growth and less risky than acquisition. Your moderator is Bernal Duncan-Spuller, chief Sherpa and CEO at Realign, who has led private equity owned distributors through turnarounds and growth. With battle proven leaders from all frontiers, we want to provoke thinking about business growth beyond conventional wisdom and binary choices.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm Benno, host of the TGO podcast, talking today with three different consumer product executives. On the tail end of the Atlanta market, where some 70,000 retail and online buyers gathered last week Mid-January 2024, thousands of buyers get together buying what consumers will buy in stores or online a few months from now or later in 2024. So it's a great place for us to get three unique insights into retail and consumer behaviors and trends from three different players, with insights into multiple categories and sourcing, countries and retail channels and online, offline. So let me start with three quick introductions of the three types of companies that are represented here. We have Lori Gilner, president and CEO of TransPak, which is a brand and distributor of consumer products under the TransPak brand and several other brands as well, selling to lots of different retailers. Welcome to Third Growth Options Podcast, lori.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me, Benno Happy to be here.
Speaker 2:And then we have Rick Haas, founder and CEO of Patina, an experience based gift and decor lifestyle retailer in the Minnesota area, in the Minneapolis area, with eight different stores. Rick welcome, thank you, it's good to be here, all right. And one more we have Bob Watson, senior VP of the Link Companies, which is a multi-line sales agency that connects lots of different brands, like Lori's, to retailers and buyers, like Rick's store, patina stores. So Bob welcome.
Speaker 4:Well, Ben, I appreciate being here.
Speaker 2:Really excited to have all three of you on this. So what I'd like to do is kind of take the first 15 or so minutes to give listeners kind of your perspective, you know, on the industry last six months, next six months of outlook, and then take the second half of this episode and kind of dig a little deeper into channel and category issues and challenges and what's going on so retailers can kind of peek outside of their own four walls also. Anybody who directly or indirectly sells to consumers has. You know we've been, I mean, all of us in this industry have been through sort of a roller coaster in the last four years. Four or five years ago it was the Trump tariffs, then it was COVID store closings, followed by supply chain chaos, followed by COVID store openings, followed by inflation, followed by election year this year. I mean it's just been crazy. So I think the consumer products industry and you know, has done quite well actually. So without all of this, let's kind of dig into it.
Speaker 2:Lori, your company, transpak, designs and Distributes, you know, this wide portfolio of products sold to lots of different types of retailers. What's the most common request or question that you're getting from retailers? At January 24th, rachel's?
Speaker 3:The most common question we always get, because Transpak is kind of a price value and strong margin business for our retailers. They definitely want to know what we're doing as it relates to pricing and that obviously ties back to what's going on with our factories. What does freight costs look like and how did that translate into the cost of our goods at wholesale and what are they going to be able to do with that every day? So number of question is always what did you do on carryover pricing and how does your pricing look for the year? And you know, I think everybody I heard across the board worked really hard this year to make sure that we were very strong in our pricing initiatives, because we know we've had a lot less control over the last couple of years and now it feels like we're regaining some control. So I'd say that's really the number one thing.
Speaker 2:And the loss of control over the last several years was, you know, container prices going from $2,000 to $25,000 per container and then inflation going kind of, you know, up into 8, 9%, coming back down.
Speaker 3:It's incredibly painful, but I think it's definitely leveled out. But I don't think it's as back to normal as I think a lot of people think. It's still a lot more volatile than I think most realize.
Speaker 2:And there's talk and we'll get into that a little bit later, but I think what you're referring to is, you know, there's talk about container prices going back up right Sue's Canal and Panama Canal, clogging things up again, right?
Speaker 3:Agreed and I don't even know that it's as much that as it is. Even prior to that, I think there are a lot of costs, poor costs and things like that that most people don't hear about or see that have something that we've had to deal with in a pretty big way Since COVID. It definitely has not, and there's been strikes and there's been other things that really changed the cost of the product and what's coming through the port. So most really just look at the freight cost on the water and they really don't pay attention to what the ports are doing. But that for us, has been something that we've seen to be a lot more volatile than most realize.
Speaker 2:And then on the retail side, rick talk a little bit about. You know consumer behaviors trends, you know what kind of things are you and your team talking about the most when it comes to the consumer and you know, are there recent changes that you know you're detecting or stuff that you guys talked about during the markets? You know Dallas, atlanta, the last couple of weeks?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'd say that we're seeing a big shift back to probably our 2019 model, which was definitely a little bit further away from more the home side, and I think that in COVID, you know, we really were successful in transitioning a lot of our brand to service that customer that was looking for things for their home, and now we're seeing it shift more to color and to more bright things. I'd say that we're going to really a more maximalist kind of color palette and shifting our price points to accommodate these changes in the market, which is more similar to what our core business was prior to COVID.
Speaker 2:Maximalist color. I love that term. Talk about what that means. Is the consumer just sort of hungry for celebrating what's going on in the consumer's mind?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think that really sort of triggers into this idea of scapism and I think that you're looking at you probably will jump to buy something that is a quicker item to decorate with, that has more color or more pop and it's maybe a bigger way of transitioning your whole environment pretty quickly. I think that people are looking for these handmade textures and finishes and I think that that kind of brings it into focus that we're kind of calling it in our little sector. We're calling it a bright new world where we're looking for these, I guess, mood boosters of color things, that kind of really sort of spark, happiness and kind of comfort and excitement and sort of that feeling of escapism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting. I was working with a decorative pillow company a few years ago that were doing pillows into the discount retailers you know TJ Maxx type of retailers. They noticed that counter cyclical pattern. You know, when the economy was going south, they were selling more of these cheap and cheerful pillows because they call them lipstick for the sofa. I think that's what they call it. Right, it's kind of that, pick me up. Hey, it's easy to just throw a little decorative pillow on the sofa. It's a lot cheaper than buying a sofa. Do you feel, rick, as you were walking the Atlanta market and you know all 18 floors of a couple different buildings and you know thousands and thousands of vendor showrooms, do you feel that vendors and brands exhibiting and selling you products did a good job of offering what the consumer you know wants that? You know that bright new world, those mood boosters did you find a lot of product?
Speaker 5:Yeah, absolutely. I felt like this is the first real time that I've seen as many new introductions. I think people are realizing that if they don't move, they're not going to stay relevant and you just have to keep moving forward. We were finding a lot of things in this category of goods and lots of new innovation and different types of product that I felt were very, very important for where we're at right now. I would say that the market in general had a tremendous amount of new products and very, very forward moving. This time it was definitely a shift that I haven't seen for a while.
Speaker 2:Refresh. After all, vendors had to sort of clamp down on new product introductions. You know, during the COVID years, when, you know, flying to factories was not possible, there was so much uncertainty and I think what I'm hearing you say, rick, is that there's more excitement and more certainty and confidence in the consumer market.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I really think that people are hearing the needs of the consumer and that they want new things. They don't want the same thing that they've seen. For the last few years and I think through COVID things maybe were a little bit flat in terms of the product development. It feels like that people were sort of scared to take the risk and I think people are just realizing that you know, business is still out there and if you don't make new product, you're not going to be able to move forward.
Speaker 2:So Bob Link Company is, you know, a sealed arm of dozens and dozens of vendors and brands selling to thousands of retailers. What are you seeing sort of in terms of retailer moves? You know things that retailers are doing, asking for and doing at this market.
Speaker 4:So Rick did an amazing job of explaining where many retailers are right now. I think he's a little bit ahead of the curve where he was talking. He was doing that, you know, towards the end of last year. As far as really refocusing on product that's, bringing in what the consumer wants, a lot of retailers spent the end of last year really making sure their inventory was in the right spot, trying to bring in hops of new, exciting, fun things when they could find it. But as they did come to market, a lot of them are refocusing on the experience that they offer their customers by making sure that they are finding new.
Speaker 4:We also found that the successful ones were doubling down on what was successful last year. If they purchased a type of look from a vendor and it did well, they were doubling down on that look at the beginning of this coming year. They were trying to stay away from the riskier investments they made last year and find the newness that Rick was talking about. So many different areas have come out with fun, exciting, different items and it's just something we haven't seen in a long time and I think there was a lot of excitement towards it. I think the retailers are doubling down and they're trying to bring that excitement to the consumer.
Speaker 2:I made an observation and I'd like to ask each of you if you agree or disagree with this. As I was walking the Atlanta market last week, I feel that you know, if I take sort of the average of you know, the thousands of exhibitors and look at how they merchandise, how they do visual merchandising, how they do packaging, how they do displays, how they brand themselves, it is as an industry, consumer product vendors have gotten a lot more sophisticated. When I compare what I saw last week to pre-COVID, you know, five and even 10 and 15 years ago, do you agree with that? Do you see that sort of the bar has been raised? I'll start with you, laurie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the bar has definitely been raised. I don't know that I would say it was better than pre-COVID. I think it's just such a huge shift from what our retailers have seen over the last couple of years. As a supplier, it's been incredibly challenging to find new factories, develop new categories, because we're not there. Our team was able to go back this past year late this past year, in 2023. And I think that made a notable difference in not just the product development but also in our packaging, as you've indicated, how we're bringing the product to market.
Speaker 3:I'd say during COVID and having to do a lot of that via email and via, you know, a phone and whatever that that was incredibly challenging to get across and so I'm not sure that it's a pre-COVID thing. I think it's more of it's been several years at this point that you've seen that type of newness and that type of progressive thinking as it relates to packaging and bringing go-to-market strategies that were much more able to execute now than we were over the last few years. It felt good. I mean as a supplier, it felt really good. I'm sure it felt really good for a lot of the other suppliers at Atlanta its market to be able to bring newness and be able to get back to the things that we really love doing most, which is trying to innovate, trying to bring new product and things to market, and I'm sure most suppliers felt that way.
Speaker 2:Rick, how do you do you see it? I mean maybe comparing walking the Atlanta market 10 years ago to last week. Do you see a raising of the bar in terms of visual merchandising, storytelling, displays, product storytelling, or is that just in my head?
Speaker 5:No, absolutely. I think that people really are kind of sort of sort of exploding in their lanes. I guess is what I would say is that if you've got somebody who is an expert in one field, they really are really sort of working towards really sort of expanding their brands. And I saw some amazing things in terms of just people with really sharp price points. This last show I was absolutely blown away at some of the pricing that I was seeing.
Speaker 5:From a very positive perspective, I think that people are adjusting to this economic downturn a little bit and really sort of sharpening their pencils a little bit, and I think they're also leveraging their freight potential and their factory potential. I saw that in just a lot of vendors where the pricing was much more competitive than I've seen in quite a while, and also I just I feel like I saw a lot of new sort of vendors taking advantage of new technologies that are making their products with a different perspective. They're either making them in a way that they're beautiful and functional or they're taking them and they're just really sort of turning them on their heels, which, for our business, is definitely a plus.
Speaker 2:And then the next one. I'm going to start with you, bob, as you're looking at business in 2024 compared to last year and revenues. How do you see revenues developing this year compared to last year, bob Iaccino?
Speaker 4:So, if you don't mind, I'm going to bounce back to the last question, actually, and then I'll answer the revenue. Bob Iaccino. Fair enough, bob Iaccino.
Speaker 4:An interesting part about this show and I started seeing it last show was there are a lot younger people walking the hallways than we have seen in a long time.
Speaker 4:And when we're talking about the changing merchandising mix, a lot of it you go back to 2008 to 2018, and we saw a lot of retailers start shopping by themselves, saving costs that way. And then, of course, 2018 to now, but just recently it's as if the buyers and the owners of retailers are bringing along a younger assistant store manager with them, or somebody with a different eye and a different perspective, and it's bringing in a whole new view that we haven't seen in independent retailers we serve in decades. So, while it's been the same person over and over again, there's a new collaboration that I feel like is happening for the first time in 15 years, but the best retailers always do a great job merchandising. But I do think you're right, it's permeating the entire channel, but I think it has to do with having better collaboration in store and during the purchasing and things of that nature. I don't know if anybody else has noticed that or thought about that, but I'd like to come on from that if you wouldn't mind.
Speaker 5:I think that Bob's really on to something, and that's something that we talk about a lot within our organization is, you know, we have to bring in this younger audience. That our eyes and our inspiration. Because if we're not bringing in this younger buyer to help attract that younger audience, we as a company will age out. It's just inevitable, and we just need their sort of freshness and their sort of like perspective on what's appealing to their generation, and I find that that that's been very much an important part of our ability to perpetuate doing business in a bigger way.
Speaker 4:When you're talking about future revenues not initially 2024, but it's great to see the retailers we serve start preparing that next generation for handing it over. It's you know, it's now that that assistant manager is back in their back, learning. They're back in the marks, they're growing their perspective and their management ability, merchandising abilities, and it's being prepared for the long term success of the independent retailer. So, while it's exciting to see it on the merchandising side immediately, which does help sales, as somebody who's planning on spending many more years in the industry, I'm excited to see that it offers a lot of security and I think that that's something we all want to feel right now. So, moving on to 2024 revenues, I think it's going to be an amazing year, not necessarily in the dollars. I think it's just going to be exciting. It's going to be fun to return to normal.
Speaker 4:I think we're looking at a relatively flat year and, based on the results over the last couple of years, I think we would be all very happy with the flat year. But it's not going to come easy. It is going to be a year that we have. There's always going to be a question mark. We know that there are a lot of question marks going out there this entire year and we came off.
Speaker 4:Market Market was very successful. People were purchasing, they wanted to bring in the new that Rick was talking about into the stores and that creativity lawyer was talking about it. People see it, they're bringing it in, they're remerchandising their stores, but I don't see them doing lots of pre-booking. So it was a strong market and I think what we're going to have to just keep talking to those retailers and serving them when they're ready. If the retailer isn't ready to purchase out for a November order right now, because who knows what's going to happen we need to be prepared to serve them when they are ready to make that commitment and that's going to be the challenge for the year. But as long as we do that, I think we have a really solid year in front of us.
Speaker 2:Great Lori. How do you see 24 from a revenue perspective compared to last year?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, 2023 was a bit of a challenge for us, to be honest. So it's definitely starting out much stronger than it did in 2023. Bob, it talked about pre-booking. I mean, transpak is a seasonal brand, so pre-booking is paramount to our business and to our success and we're very happy with what we saw the last two weeks. I would say middle of last year we started to see a shift and Bob indicated such a little bit of a shift in the mindset of our retailers where they're not looking to pre-book and they'd like to buy in season. And we have worked really hard with our reps and our retailers to help them understand that when you're a seasonal business, it's incredibly challenging. It flies in the face of a seasonal business, right, you cannot almost run, execute and deliver a seasonal business in that way. So we've worked really hard helping everyone understand that we can't let that happen. I think our retailers and our reps, our agencies, did an excellent job in the last two weeks helping our retailers, you know, see that and get their orders in. I mean, we're placing purchase orders this week for seasonal overseas and that, you know, has to happen in order for us to hit the timing. So pre-booking becomes critically important. Overall, you know we have a very good start.
Speaker 3:Do I think that it's going to be a gangbusters year? No, I don't, and I think Bob's comment about it's going to be a struggle and we're going to have to fight for it and work for it. No question about it. An election year is always creates a little bit of uncertainty. I think this election year will create a little more uncertainty than most, and I think that that is never good for us. But we don't typically see that slow down until we get closer to it, until that certainty becomes even, you know, more prevalent on the news and things like that. So we're prepared to fight for it. I do think it'll be a better year. We did, admittedly, have a pretty challenging 2023. So I'm happy with so far, you know, the start of 2024.
Speaker 2:All right Off to a good start and cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:All right, rick, how do you feel about revenues in 24?
Speaker 5:I'm feeling really good about 2024. I feel that as a company, we have a lot of open to buy. I feel like our inventory you know where you were sort of balancing inventory in the past few years, trying to make sure that you're always in stock. So we may have gotten a couple categories a little bit further ahead than we would have liked to have been, and I feel like that's all evened out and I feel like we're going to have a really, really strong year. I'm very optimistic in respect to what I'm seeing at market. When you see innovation in the market, that means that I'm going to have innovative sales and that means I can really turn some product and I can really kind of do some magic. So I'm feeling really good about the year.
Speaker 2:Good, all right, we'd like it when a retailer wants to do magic and can do it with a product offered at market right? Hey, I want to step back to a comment Bob made a few minutes ago about the younger buyers and showing up to market and Rick being very mindful of going after the younger consumers so that you don't age, you know, so that your concept doesn't age out, so to speak. And, lori, I wanted to ask you this question in terms of, from a digital perspective. The younger the buyer, the more they are digital native and the and and you know they grew up sort of, you know, expecting a one click. You know an Amazon type one click shopping experience for everything. Are you seeing that translate to their buying behavior as well, in terms of the digital infrastructure that you need to, or the digital experience that you, as a brand, want to offer your buyers? Are your? Is your digital infrastructure spending sort of staying constant or going up? How do you see digital spending?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we're getting ready to relaunch a new website on Shopify. So we are going after they launched this past year B2B site and we're going with Shopify. So new website and that place to that digital native that you're referencing. It needs to have more technology. It needs to be easier to use our ability to take all four of our brands and put them on one site so they can easily flow from brand to brand or all things that are really important, you know, to doing business today and something that I think is becoming more important on the B2B world versus just B2C. So that's been a big initiative for us. I mean, as it relates to our buyers. I think it's a really interesting question because our buyers have stepped into a very traditional model, Right, I mean, let's, let's face it, it's pretty traditional and a lot of our buyers are used to just doing business the same way day in and day out, and then you get some of these younger buyers are also called earlier in their career buyers that Bob's referencing and what they're looking for is they're having to adapt to this very traditional model, but also asking for something more from us as it relates to that. So a lot more images, a lot more easier. It's funny Our buyers like to communicate via text, and I find it so interesting to me because you can only get so much across via text.
Speaker 3:But they love to text. It doesn't matter. I mean, they'd rather text than email, which I just find fascinating Because it's in essence, the same thing, but whatever it is, they want to text. So we do a lot more texting with our buyers than we ever did before. And as far as the tools they're looking for from us, I mean they're just looking for digital catalogs. Anything that we can't hand over to them. You know that makes their life less paper. More digital is great for the buyers, I'd say for our key account world, but our specialty world. So we're not much traditional on what paper and still want to do business, I'd say a little bit in the old way, and we're here for it. We're here to do both.
Speaker 2:Right, digital assets, paper assets or whatever you need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as much as I'd love to walk away from a paper catalog, and every time we go to print it, our customers still want a paper catalog, and so it's something we still have to give to them.
Speaker 2:And I think, as an industry, we're in this sort of transition period where we do need to do it both ways, right, print and digital. But you know, I think that digital tools are getting better all the time. And I mean, rick, you were saying that you know you're constantly looking for digital assets of you know the type that Lori is talking about. I mean, that is important, right.
Speaker 5:It definitely is important for us in terms of our own sort of bookkeeping abilities. We don't use it as much for the consumer purchasing side of it, but for our own internal use. It's very helpful.
Speaker 2:Got you, got you. So let's take it a little deeper. In terms of category changes, we're there during COVID, post COVID. You know, during COVID it was home categories, post COVID it sort of went back to apparel and experience based things, any changes of category requests or categories that are doing particularly well, going up or going down. That you could tell from the last couple of markets here in January Lori.
Speaker 3:I'd say a big one's outdoor decor. We're seeing a heavy shift to outdoor decor. We've done a lot more. You know garden stakes, but in Halloween or holiday we have a new business that does a very light up, large outdoor decor. We're seeing a big shift to that. So that's a category that we're seeing porch decor, things like that. So I think it's interesting because, to your point, during COVID, everything became home and decorating the inside and I think people are looking a little more outward right now. I'd say the same thing for outdoor entertaining and things that are again taking you outside and decorating outside. Big shift in that.
Speaker 2:Rick, when we were talking yesterday, you had talked about consumer trends and consumer requests around sustainable product and environmental sustainability, which hasn't moved much beyond buzzword in the industry. But I think you're seeing a shift toward it becoming less of a buzzword and more of an action item.
Speaker 5:Is that yeah, I think that you know, when I look at our brand, I look at sort of our responsibility to the next generation and our responsibility to try to convey a message that's consistent with our customers. So we are looking for items that are recyclable or reusable or have a longer life cycle, and even within lighting, you know, like making sure that my lighting, that I purchase, is LED and that it's responsible. I guess we look at materials like glass, like I would choose glass over plastic every time I possibly can for our customer, and I think that it's maybe more subtle ways of doing it than being branded as that as such, you know. So I do feel like that is one thing that Petina as a company does pretty consistently through most of its efforts, and I guess I say too that I would agree with Lori that I think that the lighting category is becoming a very important one for us, in particularly seasonal lighting, and I would also sort of look to kind of that kind of comfort item.
Speaker 5:I think the things that make us feel good right now are very, very important in the market. I am continually amazed at just the power of plush animals. It's just kind of mind boggling, but I think that in this kind of crazy world right now, where there's so much uncertainty that there is a lot of multi-age interest in plush which is interesting because it's not just a thing for a two-year-old or a five-year-old, it's for that younger customer that's in their 20s, into their 30s it's a very, very unusual. That that's, I guess, surprising, or however you want to phrase it. It's just a different approach that we've seen in the market in the past and I'd say also, probably the thing that we're looking for is things that are lighthearted, that make us just feel happy.
Speaker 2:As we start to wrap up, I do want to go back to one item that Lori brought up early in the conversation around supply chain issues, sort of creeping back into the conversation and I wanted to ask Bob, are there some smart ways that you're seeing vendors get ahead of supply chain issues? Lori had talked about educating buyers and trying to guide buyers to order earlier. You're saying a lot of buyers want to order later. Maybe some buyers or maybe some vendors are going into new sourcing countries to manage supply chain issues. Anything come up in terms of smart ways that one of your vendors is being proactive on supply chain issues?
Speaker 4:That actually starts with the retailer being smart, where they are working with the vendors that have succeeded for them in the past, with all the challenges, if they have been a good supplier and I'm not saying perfect but if you run into problems, they communicate, they share, they work with their retailers and ultimately trying to get them the price that they can in a good, smart way at the right prices, they continue to go back to those suppliers. I think there's a trust that builds with there and so we have seen that from our retailer base where they are sharing that with their salesperson, where they're going in saying that one had a tough time and they're willing to talk about it. But it can't come down to when there are problems. You know vendors that communicate and share what's happening with their retailers and help them find solutions to those problems and don't wait to you know it was supposed to ship a month ago before they start communicating. Those suppliers the retailers really do appreciate and come back to time and time again.
Speaker 4:So I find that the retailers are the ones who are doing a lot of that research and thinking about their supply chain, which are the vendors in the industry. As far as what the vendors are doing again. The best thing they can do is respond as the goons have in the past. You know communicate, communicate early and share what's going on and give people the opportunity to fix problems, because it's easy to do if people have the answers, then, as far as China Plus One is out there, a lot of our vendors are looking for additional resources right now. Many of them you know, about 30% of the people we represent have some portion of their line domestically made or they are using domestic resources to help them get over certain hurdle points by finding bottlenecks and taking care of it, and that must be a higher percentage than five years ago.
Speaker 2:You said 30% are sourcing something in the United States.
Speaker 4:It's growing. I think they continue to. It's a leap that is. You know, everybody wants to do today, but it takes a lot of time and resources to prepare for something like that. So you are correct, it's more than it was, say, five years ago. But there are even more looking at it. Conversations are happening in the hallways almost daily during market time. You know how do you do that. You know how do you. Where do you source the stitching? Yeah, there's a lot going on there.
Speaker 4:I do think the you know, obviously, moving into India when possible, moving into other areas all the vendors are discussing it. There's lots of opportunities for people to do the China Plus One. I don't think anybody wants to move 100% tomorrow because it's a risk. That's unfair for everybody. You know it's unfair for the retailers and the consumer if you risk too much of that product base at once. But there is a slow, consistent shift happening and it's happening in a smart way. That's exciting for everybody. I do think it's something we all have to pay attention to and make sure that your supply chain is diversified a little bit From us to the retailer, to the vendors, and we see that happen.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody on this, I mean all of all three of you have done a great job of painting. You know, I the picture that emerges in my mind here is that the consumer is healthy. Vendors are aggressively offering new and exciting products, going into new categories and and all three of you are cautiously optimistic about 2024 I would say more so than I heard people 12 months ago going into 23. I think there was a lot more hesitation going into Into the new year 12 months ago than right now, so that should bode well for for all of us. Any closing thoughts Do any of the three of you want to say something that I didn't ask you yet?
Speaker 5:And I just would like to sort of echo what Bob had said. It, towards the end too, is that you know I look at this is it's a business of relationships. You know you're talking about going back to vendors that have served you well, you're talking about the communication aspects and the business is like a relationship and it takes work on both ends to To make sure that you bridge all these different communication gaps that can can happen and the good partners really kind of come to the come to the surface on that. So it's it's nice to hear Bob say that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it definitely struck a chord with me when Bob talked about communication. It's been the one thing that Sometimes we do a really good job at it and sometimes we don't, but it's it always comes back to bite us when we don't. So I think it's. I love the call out and Certainly when I hear Rick talk about what he's looking for from a retailer perspective, it gets me charged up a little bit as it relates to making sure we're meeting, exceeding those expectations so better. I appreciate the conversation. I think cautiously optimistic is a great, you know great way to say how I think we're all feeling. And, yeah, to frame it up, and you know, I wish really everyone on listening great success in 2023, 2024, because I know we could, we could all use it.
Speaker 2:Terrific. Thank you so much Laurie, thank you so much Bob and thank you so much Rick. This was a great episode and we'll do one again, maybe during the summer shows or the next January shows. Thank you. If folks wanted to explore other growth topics, you can find me on our website, realignforresultscom, or just email Benno B E N N O at realignforresultscom. Thank you and keep growing.
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