The New York International Gift Show

January 30 - February 3, 2010

I spent the last four days with my mom at the New York International Gift Show. She has a floral and table top business and wanted to explore the new products that are coming to market. I don’t think either of us had any idea how big the Gift Show was going to be. I had designs on seeing a few things in NYC outside of the show but I literally did not have an extra five minutes of daylight. We spent between eight and ten hours at the convention Sunday through Tuesday.

I had five main reaction to the show:

1. After being home for two days, the overall size of the market is still shocking. It filled the entire convention center in NYC (Javits Center), a LARGE pier (pier 94) and three permanent showroom buildings in midtown.

2. For a wholesale market, on average, the price of merchandise was shockingly high.

3. I want to start a store called “Things I Like”. There will be no central theme to the items carried in the store other than that they will all be... get this... things I like. From this show that would include all “Knock Knock” products, Wry Baby clothes, Jacarte Vases, a variety of things from Tokens and Icons, a few random pieces of jewelry, custom made Christmas ornaments, and these ornate hand painted eggs from Austria (the guy is so old school he has no website).

4. I can’t believe the number of independent jewelry makers. In retrospect I wish I had taken a survey to see the average number of years each had been in business. I can’t believe that there is enough room in the marketplace for all of them to succeed.

5. Thankfully, for at least another year, the entrepreneurial spirit lives on in America.