On Thu, 9 Nov 2006 17:22:21 -0500, "Pat Brennan"
wrote:
I just got a mailing from New York and they are introducing new rules which
they hope will help vendors. One rule prohibits bottom feeding pricing and
another prohibits Sunday afternoon dumping. The mailing is just about as
adamant as it can be without crossing the price fixing line. I have always
though trying to control a commodity's price was never easy and in most
cases not a good idea. At least the show's board recognized problems and
acted in a mater they felt was best for the show and its vendors. We will
see.

All you guys out there involved in putting on these shows need to be
watching closely to make sure your show remands viable for the number and
type of vendors it involves or the society desires. Creative solutions are
going to be required and show boards are facing hard decisions.
Pat

Denver acts as vendor for the Spring show in March and uses that for a
fund raiser. The prior year we paid the gardens over $800 as their
25% take on profits after sales. This year it was under $300. One of
the problems this year has been the Gardens keep miss printing our
show dates. So that we have the Second Weekend in March and in
October. They published this fall show as the 3rd weekend. All we
need is a Bronco game or a Snow storm and we are out the entire
commission.

We used to drop prices on Sunday afternoon - it increased traffic...
but it got so people often waited for Sunday afternoon to buy. This
year we found a local vendor to front for us. We did not take
discounts because he took back what we could not sell. So we had a
better selection on Sunday and nothing looked Shop-worn. He claimed
he was getting the phone calls - he might as well be our wholesaler.
Have his tags in the plants, etc.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids

Big question: would he be willing to do it again?

We used to drop prices on Sunday afternoon - it increased traffic...
but it got so people often waited for Sunday afternoon to buy. This
year we found a local vendor to front for us. We did not take
discounts because he took back what we could not sell. So we had a
better selection on Sunday and nothing looked Shop-worn. He claimed
he was getting the phone calls - he might as well be our wholesaler.
Have his tags in the plants, etc.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids

Taken with Koopowitz's recent editorial in 'The Orchid Digest' it appears
some societies are moving away from the 'show' aspect of their annual fund
raisers and only having the 'sale' portions. Two of the societies in the
CalSierra region hold sales instead of shows. I believe both are held in
conjunction with large home and garden shows. The DVOS had their show in
October, did not buy any plants as a society, only sold member's plants and
took a cut from the vendor (like what Pat was saying). We made more $$ than
in any previous year. We tried 1) being a vendor and having other vendors,
2) being the only vendor and 3) this time selling society members plants and
letting vendors sell. To us it looks like #3 is the winner. Also we
advertised the heck out of the show with signs placed at just about every
intersection in town. Lo tech.

I like Pat's comment that the local show may act only to whet the public's
appetite for orchids, so they then go off to Trader Joe's and buy their
plants. I suppose one would have to wonder where does one's sympathies lie?
As a Board member I wanted more members to come to the meetings. But as I
write this, maybe the club makes more money from the sale than they do from
the members and so why spend so much energy on the least productive portion
of the Club's income? If a club was to be run as a business then members,
newsletters and meetings are a loss leader. The real money comes from
auctions and sales.

I dunno, I'm just talking off the top of my head here, and I think I just
scared myself. *G*. Where's that dang 'Matrix' when you need it?

One of my friends eyes the progress of big box stores as a good thing.
Finally time for the vendor to finally make some decent money. But then
he's on the *Big* side of the business. He wholesales to box stores. To
him the debate is one of Darwinism. If you can't compete then get out of
the way. I suppose its the same way in any ag business. The little niche
growers vs the multinational conglomerates. I suppose our local societies
could be thought of as the Chez Panisses of the restaurant world, insisting
on the freshest most organic of foods for our restaurant's clientele who are
willing to pay the price. (Hmmm... there may be a newsletter article in
that notion...)

K Barrett

The NCOS publishes a growing guide with articles about how to grow various
genera and different aspects of orchid culture. It is about 20 to 30 pages
and the ads are in color so it costs a bit to produce. They hand it out
free at the show/sale they have in October. They sell advertising space in
this book to offset the cost of producing it. It is worth it to me, and I
think to other local orchid growers, to buy the ad space in this book
because it is local and given out to like 10,000 people a year who show up
at the NCOS show/sale with an interest in finding local orchid recourses.
It is one of the few places where I *see* a benefit of buying advertising.
It is one of the few ideas to come out of my local orchid society that I
think all local vendors could easily support with a minimum of fuss and
competitive jostling. Included in this guide are also advertisements for
local nearby smaller societies so it is possible that local societies could
band together to produce it and share its costs and benefits at local
functions. Two years ago they bought enough booklets to last two years but
Sadly, I think my society has concluded it is too expensive to produce and
is not going to do it again next year. This is really a pity from my point
of view.

Past exchanges have shown that OS show procedures vary greatly in different
parts of the country. I can speak only to South Florida. In our area:

Yes, local OS shows are struggling. It's harder every year to find
affordable venues that are suitable. The rent for both mall space and
freestanding buildings goes up and up each year. Mall space is not
conducive to charging admission, and requires MISERABLE hours from both OS
volunteers and the vendors. Freestanding buildings are difficult to even
find, much less rent, and often the size doesn't match, compared to the OS'
most recent show. So they either have to add or drop vendors. Both
problematic, from the grower side of the equation. No one wants to be
dropped because of a smaller location; on the other hand, going into a
10-vendor show that used to be 5
vendors, in a new location (with no assurance that the OS has put any of our
show fee $$ into extra advertising to compensate), is also pretty scary.

It's also becoming harder to charge admission even at free-standing
locations, at least in some cases. I've seen people walk away rather than
pay $3, or even
$1, to enter a show. I'm no longer active in any local OS management (I
found it a conflict of interest with my job here at JBO), but I hear through
the
grapevine that raffle sales are also generally down. All of which means
that vendor fees keep going up -- I WISH it had been 10 years since I'd seen
a rate hike!
[Although honesty compels me to say that since everything else in the world
seems to be going up (except the price of blooming orchids), if you haven't
had one for 10 years, you're probably overdue .... ]

The insistence of the OSs on having exhibits, in addition to the growers'
sales booths, further restricts their available options for venues, but they
obviously want them, and if they're sponsoring the show, that's their
prerogative. But when the OSs have to pay more for venue rent, that turns
into higher vendor fees (added to the cost that Pat mentioned -- it costs us
vendors $$ to put those things together). My option as a vendor is simply
to either accept or decline the invitation.

I hope the rules at the show you mentioned work, but I'm doubtful. In my
experience, OS tend to invite 2 categories of growers for whom Sunday
dumping is simply inevitable:

1. Out-of-country growers who truly can't afford to ship any unsold plants
back to their country-of-origin. Yes, these plants were really cheap, back
in those countries ... By the time you get them landed here, the cost is
usually triple or better. Sending them back simply wouldn't be feasible.
[Besides the cost, there's the double shipping stress on the plants]. So
"everything must go" before the show ends. They'll lose less money selling
them below cost than they will by throwing them in the dumpster.

2. Backyard growers. They take a booth because they have excess plants to
sell (divisions of plants they bought a long time ago, things they didn't
like as much as they thought they would, the other X#plants from a compot or
flask after they've picked their 2 or 3 favs) and need to make room in
their own growing areas. Then, they realize that these plants won't fill
their tables nor cover the booth fee, so they order a couple boxes from
Hawaii, Thailand, or wherever (and find out _after_ they've paid the nursery
that the "landed" cost is a lot more than the per plant cost they saw on
some website). They don't want to take anything home, because after all,
their original goal was to make room, not get more filled up. [And they
need to pay the current VISA bills for what they bought, along with the
shipping, but have no venue to sell the plants the following week.]

When those in charge are serious about such rules (in my experience, seldom
at OS shows), these growers will at least try to wholesale their excess to
the professionals in attendance as vendors. But what can't be disposed of
that way will be dumped -- to the public -- at ridiculously low prices. So
the customers don't need to leave the show and go to box stores; they can
just walk to the next booth. Some of these customers realize they're
getting "distress sale" prices; others think that's what the prices should
have been all along and that the other vendors charging realistic prices are
a "bunch of ripoffs."

Best of luck to all, Kenni

One thing that does worry me is the local society sponsored orchid shows.
These shows count on orchid sales to pay the bills and the current show
trends have not been very good. At most shows it seems that attendance is
down and a more common attitude of the public seems to be "A great
variety, but not
many interesting ones........And of course you can not beat the price at
the
box store!" Instead of coming home from the show with two plants, they
get fired up at the show and then head off to the box store to buy three
plants for the same money.

I do not think that there is much the vendors can do about price. I tend
to sell plants at shows for about $30. Of that $30, about $6 from every
plant sold goes directly to the society as a table fee or commission. In
addition, I figure another $2 from every plant sold goes to pay for the
costs associated with putting in an exhibit. If we remove the fees that I
must pay to underwrite the cost of a show, I am receiving about $22 per
plants sold. Not very different from what some box stores receive.

Some societies are already feeling the pinch. Over the past few months
two of my commission shows have announced rate hikes. It is the first
time I have seen rate hikes in ten years. In the first one, all of the
vendors refused to do the show. I attended the society meeting of the
second. There was a general feeling at the meeting that vendors could just
raise their prices to cover the increase in fees. Thankfully my wife was
there (I am too gruff to be allowed to speak in public) and she was able
to explain we deal in a commodity that has it price set by the market
(i.e. box stores.) If we raise our prices too high not only will we lose
sales but the general public will think of the show as a rip-off and never
come back. I did this show and most of the commission increase came
directly out of my back pocket. I do not know if the other vendors were
able to past on the costs or if they ate them as well.

I just got a mailing from New York and they are introducing new rules
which they hope will help vendors. One rule prohibits bottom feeding
pricing and another prohibits Sunday afternoon dumping. The mailing is
just about as adamant as it can be without crossing the price fixing line.
I have always though trying to control a commodity's price was never easy
and in most cases not a good idea. At least the show's board recognized
problems and acted in a mater they felt was best for the show and its
vendors. We will see.

All you guys out there involved in putting on these shows need to be
watching closely to make sure your show remands viable for the number and
type of vendors it involves or the society desires. Creative solutions
are going to be required and show boards are facing hard decisions.


Pat

On Thu, 9 Nov 2006 21:29:13 -0500, "Kenni Judd"
wrote:

Big question: would he be willing to do it again?

We used to drop prices on Sunday afternoon - it increased traffic...
but it got so people often waited for Sunday afternoon to buy. This
year we found a local vendor to front for us. We did not take
discounts because he took back what we could not sell. So we had a
better selection on Sunday and nothing looked Shop-worn. He claimed
he was getting the phone calls - he might as well be our wholesaler.
Have his tags in the plants, etc.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids


Yes, He has signed up for March 2007. He considered it an advertising
piece as well as covering his costs. It is the Contribution Margin
that is slim here. But at least when someone calls to ask about one
of the plants they bought he can tell them to come in and bring it. It
has his tag and it was his volume sale. He wants to bring "club
specials" to the preview party and have more exciting plants for the
club growers. Species and Ascda, Vanda, etc.
Most of the sales are for the non-growing public. Generic (but
labeled) phals and other pretties or easy growers.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids

On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 17:12:53 -0500, "Kenni Judd"
wrote:

When those in charge are serious about such rules (in my experience, seldom
at OS shows), these growers will at least try to wholesale their excess to
the professionals in attendance as vendors. But what can't be disposed of
that way will be dumped -- to the public -- at ridiculously low prices. So
the customers don't need to leave the show and go to box stores; they can
just walk to the next booth. Some of these customers realize they're
getting "distress sale" prices; others think that's what the prices should
have been all along and that the other vendors charging realistic prices are
a "bunch of ripoffs."

Best of luck to all, Kenni

Kenni -
The no dumping is one Alan of Gold Country taught us. He believes in
it to the point he will find a way to ship or offer them to the OS for
Raffle. We only 'rule' that way when we are our own vendor at the
spring show. That is why we were so happy to be able to use the ONE
vendor in the region as a wholesaler. And not have to dump. We had a
1/3 of our sales during preview and 1/3 after lunch on Sunday. That
meant we were getting price cutters only. First it was a discounted
price, then we were discounting during preview for members (closed
preview) and have the dumpers shop on Sunday for discounts. Cutting
that helped.
We had more variety - but we had members who would not come berceuse
they could go to the shop on Monday and get the same plant. Their
loss.

Our spring show is now going to be a bench show - no displays except
the bench committees' attempt to make their table a nicer display than
the next door set. Using the display of similar plants and
arrangement to assist in getting people over the fear of putting
together a display.


Al - I like your booklet idea if the area has enough growers and
societies to do it.

We are having trouble getting small local groups to continue to do a
display. 2 that had regularly displayed with us, did not do anything
this spring or fall.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids

" I suppose our local societies
could be thought of as the Chez Panisses of the restaurant world,
insisting
on the freshest most organic of foods for our restaurant's clientele
who are
willing to pay the price. (Hmmm... there may be a newsletter article
in
that notion...)

K Barrett "

From a user's view point, this quote is the smartest thing said in this
thread. IMHO "club" and "business" are and should be separate. Mixing
the two, in clubs I have joined, works the hell out of members and
produces a bland product. The best clubs concentrate on member
enjoyment and let the business aspects take a back seat. The local OS
serves bad coffee and speakers, has little room for socializing, is set
up like a classroom and is populated by a pretty dour member set. At
their shows everybody is hovered around the sales booths and the
exhibits stand in lonely beauty, abandoned, unexplained, an
afterthought to this business of selling. Wouldn't it be a winner if,
lined up behind a First Prize Winner there were a dozen siblings, in
bloom, waiting for a new owner! Instead, you must walk from this beauty
to some forlorn stall and buy a bare root baby that looks like a cold
wet dog. That, by the way, is the feeling I get when buying from a big
box. That, by the way, is the way I got into orchids, buying a blooming
beauty for someone. That rule still applies for me. I seldom buy one to
grow, I buy it to bloom! There the BBs have you beat, sell the bloom
not the plant. They just cannot perform that feat very well, you should
be able to.OR, split your effort to sell plants AND bloomers, two VERY
different markets. Plants should arrive ready to grow, no repotting for
two years, with complete instructions. No difficult to grow,seldom
blooming wonders. Check roses, they only sell when in bloom, orchids
should be the same. If you would only decide to be bloom sellers your
life would be easy and wallets fat. Lowe's only sells blooming plants
in pots, maybe you should take the hint. Lowe's orchids in a bag you
ask ? The bag has a huge bloom on it! Like I say, they only sell
blooms. Most orchid sellers show you the bloom then sell you the plant!
Most that will bloom in two to five YEARS!!! Give me a break.
Joe T
I confess that I do have one plant to grow, a Max. Picta. My wife gave
me a hand full of pbulbs 12 years ago saying "this is an orchid" Yeah,
right! I have been growing that damn thing for TWELVE YEARS! Always
near death, never a bloom. My wife could compete with some orchid
sellers I have known. Heavy on the "have"



K Barrett wrote:
Taken with Koopowitz's recent editorial in 'The Orchid Digest' it appears
some societies are moving away from the 'show' aspect of their annual fund
raisers and only having the 'sale' portions. Two of the societies in the
CalSierra region hold sales instead of shows. I believe both are held in
conjunction with large home and garden shows. The DVOS had their show in
October, did not buy any plants as a society, only sold member's plants and
took a cut from the vendor (like what Pat was saying). We made more $$ than
in any previous year. We tried 1) being a vendor and having other vendors,
2) being the only vendor and 3) this time selling society members plants and
letting vendors sell. To us it looks like #3 is the winner. Also we
advertised the heck out of the show with signs placed at just about every
intersection in town. Lo tech.

I like Pat's comment that the local show may act only to whet the public's
appetite for orchids, so they then go off to Trader Joe's and buy their
plants. I suppose one would have to wonder where does one's sympathies lie?
As a Board member I wanted more members to come to the meetings. But as I
write this, maybe the club makes more money from the sale than they do from
the members and so why spend so much energy on the least productive portion
of the Club's income? If a club was to be run as a business then members,
newsletters and meetings are a loss leader. The real money comes from
auctions and sales.

I dunno, I'm just talking off the top of my head here, and I think I just
scared myself. *G*. Where's that dang 'Matrix' when you need it?

One of my friends eyes the progress of big box stores as a good thing.
Finally time for the vendor to finally make some decent money. But then
he's on the *Big* side of the business. He wholesales to box stores. To
him the debate is one of Darwinism. If you can't compete then get out of
the way. I suppose its the same way in any ag business. The little niche
growers vs the multinational conglomerates. I suppose our local societies
could be thought of as the Chez Panisses of the restaurant world, insisting
on the freshest most organic of foods for our restaurant's clientele who are
willing to pay the price. (Hmmm... there may be a newsletter article in
that notion...)

K Barrett

No dumping: I had a boss who produced Poinsettias for retail sale in his
greenhouse at a local nursery which was open to the public. People came in
all summer and fall to watch the progress. We did them from cuttings in the
summer and tended them as they grew and the season arrived to sell them.
These were PREMIUM Poinsettias. He would *NOT* discount them as Christmas
got closer and customers started trying to bargain. He would say he would
rather toss them outside the morning after Christmas than give them away the
day before. Since their selling value drops to zero on Christmas morning,
this is exactly what he did with many of them, but I do believe he was
correct in his assertion that dropping the price creates a false sense of
their value for future sales. Another way to illustrate this future value
effect is with that of seasonal sales. I had a 20% sale one July, typically
my lowest sales month, and the next year in May and June I had customers
asking me when I was going to put things on sale again and telling me they
were holding off buying until I had the sale. And the numbers for the
months leading up to known sales did tend to drop a bit as people waited for
the bargains they thought were coming. The only reason to have a sale is to
increase income. Often you shoot yourself in the foot by reducing the price
to prevent loss. It is better to plan ahead as much as possible (I prefer
spreadsheets) and learn how much stock to have on hand than to dump or slash
because in the end it comes back to bite you on the butt. I can imagine it
must drive the vendors who rely on show sales to put their kids through
college insane to watch backyard vendors destroy livelihoods and calling it
'profit' without any inkling of what they are truly doing. There are ways
to do things like "George Washington's Birthday Sale" that increase income
and reduce prices, but these are *planned events* and do not dump
merchandise in the manner we are discussing here.


"Susan Erickson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Nov 2006 21:29:13 -0500, "Kenni Judd"
wrote:

Big question: would he be willing to do it again?

We used to drop prices on Sunday afternoon - it increased traffic...
but it got so people often waited for Sunday afternoon to buy. This
year we found a local vendor to front for us. We did not take
discounts because he took back what we could not sell. So we had a
better selection on Sunday and nothing looked Shop-worn. He claimed
he was getting the phone calls - he might as well be our wholesaler.
Have his tags in the plants, etc.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids


Yes, He has signed up for March 2007. He considered it an advertising
piece as well as covering his costs. It is the Contribution Margin
that is slim here. But at least when someone calls to ask about one
of the plants they bought he can tell them to come in and bring it. It
has his tag and it was his volume sale. He wants to bring "club
specials" to the preview party and have more exciting plants for the
club growers. Species and Ascda, Vanda, etc.
Most of the sales are for the non-growing public. Generic (but
labeled) phals and other pretties or easy growers.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids

We started e baying different stuff available locally and one orchid
that didn't sell. There's a lot more that goes into it than meets the
eye at first glance. The listing charge, final value fee, Paypal fees,
packaging and shipping. The value of an e bay store v cost of
individual listing, etc.

The break points for product acquisition (price break for quantity and
cost of shipping to your location). You said 1000 plants per flask
order on your end. (Don't anser, comes under the heading of NUNYA)
That could be 10 flasks @100 or 50 flasks @ 20. You know the flask
style, your cost, condition, and have a pretty good idea of the shelf
life of the flask before it breaks down and has to be potted out. Do
you have enough time to sell before the expiration date? Do you take a
chance and sell at auction or for a fixed price with a margin for your
time?

I"m trying to grow from flask. Stupid me, but I've received deflasked,
jumbled, overgrown, small plants, as well as really premier quality and
condition. The first 3 have to be dealt with immediately, the small
plants might be held for a while, recipients option. The last gives
the best results for survival obviously. Now I'm suspicious of the out
of flask or overgrown. It's bad enough that the estimated mortality is
25% without adding the extra handling 4 days apart for the deflasked
(one order deflasked was very nice) or plants that are already
deteriorating in flask. Jumbling is outside the control and a chance
you take. Heck, even you take that chance unless you can pick up your
order and drive them yourself.

Then there's the hype. In your case the uniqueness and objective of
the cross. Are the parent plants awarded, were they clones, blah blah?
Can you provide an off site link of the photos to minimize the price
of the ad? Do you have photos of the parent plants and blooms, pod
development, maybe a photo of the lab? You are selling dreams in
addition to orchids. You know the hype, limited availability, every
plant will have a different bloom, etc.

Here I am back in the fray.

Nancy


Susan Erickson wrote:
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 17:19:05 -0500, "Kenni Judd"
wrote:

All of which begs the question of, what's a hobbyist to do with 1000 of a
particular clone or cross? That's a lot of plants for me to handle ...
Kenni

So they see if they can e-bay a
flask or two, double their expected ability to handle plants and pitch
the rest. Cost of doing business is sometimes the unsellable gets
tossed even if you paid for it.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids

Nancy: I don't e-bay, for reasons including and beyond those you mention.
Nor do I ship flasks, retail (same -- and I always plan for the likelihood
that I may have to de-flask all 1000 within a day of arrival, if I have
flasks shipped to me). The 1000 plants per clone or seed pod flasked can
break down in varying amounts, but the usual around here for
grower-nurseries is 20 flasks of 50 plants each. That's why I said that
selling off 2 flasks would only get you down from 1000 to 900. There may be
labs out there which would do smaller runs or smaller bottles, but I haven't
found them yet and in any event, the per-plant or per-bottle cost would have
to be higher.

The earlier expressed view (I forget the author) that _flowers_ rather than
plants are the sellers is mostly correct. Flowers are relatively easy to
sell. The market for plants out-of-flower is very limited, but it does
exist, and we do try to use it to supplement our sales of flowering plants.
Holding even 100 plants from flask to bloom would be a big task for most
hobbyists ... It also costs $$ to the pro growers, to raise 1000 of them
(less mortality), which is why whomever said our lives would be easy and our
wallets fat, if we quit trying to sell plants and just sold flowers, is
seriously wrong. Even a mature plant spends x% of its time out of bloom
(varies by type of plant, rarely less than 50%), but it still costs $$ to
maintain that plant till it blooms again ...

Marketing/hype is an art; we try (and yes, we have flower pictures, but no
lab pics as we do not do this in-house). I suspect I could do better if I
were less honest (a sad state of affairs).

As for the quality of the product, so far we have done mostly species (what
the hobbyist customer says s/he wants) and a couple of clones -- one
awarded, the other might well be if I had time to take it to judging,
assuming it bloomed at the right time of the month to get it there in prime
condition. But I have also long maintained that the AOS judging system is
way out of step with the wants of the orchid-buying public. The plant may
have an FCC, an AM, or an HCC. None of those awards give any points for
most of what hobby-customers say they want: long flower life, frequent
blooming, fragrance, etc., etc.

Best of luck with your own flasks! Kenni


"Nancy G." wrote in message
ups.com...
We started e baying different stuff available locally and one orchid
that didn't sell. There's a lot more that goes into it than meets the
eye at first glance. The listing charge, final value fee, Paypal fees,
packaging and shipping. The value of an e bay store v cost of
individual listing, etc.

The break points for product acquisition (price break for quantity and
cost of shipping to your location). You said 1000 plants per flask
order on your end. (Don't anser, comes under the heading of NUNYA)
That could be 10 flasks @100 or 50 flasks @ 20. You know the flask
style, your cost, condition, and have a pretty good idea of the shelf
life of the flask before it breaks down and has to be potted out. Do
you have enough time to sell before the expiration date? Do you take a
chance and sell at auction or for a fixed price with a margin for your
time?

I"m trying to grow from flask. Stupid me, but I've received deflasked,
jumbled, overgrown, small plants, as well as really premier quality and
condition. The first 3 have to be dealt with immediately, the small
plants might be held for a while, recipients option. The last gives
the best results for survival obviously. Now I'm suspicious of the out
of flask or overgrown. It's bad enough that the estimated mortality is
25% without adding the extra handling 4 days apart for the deflasked
(one order deflasked was very nice) or plants that are already
deteriorating in flask. Jumbling is outside the control and a chance
you take. Heck, even you take that chance unless you can pick up your
order and drive them yourself.

Then there's the hype. In your case the uniqueness and objective of
the cross. Are the parent plants awarded, were they clones, blah blah?
Can you provide an off site link of the photos to minimize the price
of the ad? Do you have photos of the parent plants and blooms, pod
development, maybe a photo of the lab? You are selling dreams in
addition to orchids. You know the hype, limited availability, every
plant will have a different bloom, etc.

Here I am back in the fray.

Nancy

"Kenni Judd" wrote in message
...
All of which means
that vendor fees keep going up -- I WISH it had been 10 years since I'd
seen
a rate hike!
[Although honesty compels me to say that since everything else in the
world
seems to be going up (except the price of blooming orchids), if you
haven't
had one for 10 years, you're probably overdue .... ]

Hi Kenni,

Around here we have two types of shows. The first is much like yours in
that the society sells sales tables. The cost of tables at these shows have
risen like every thing else over the years.

In the Mid Atlantic area we also have a second type of show, the commission
show. They are part of the legacy left by Merit Huntington. Instead of
vendors taking money, the society runs a central checkout. The society
collects money, handles sales tax, processes credit cards, packs the
purchases, and provides culture info (thus the booklet Al was talking about
for the DC show). Instead of receiving a fixed table fee, the society takes
a percent of the sales (20% in most cases). These shows are cool in that a
society's financial success in not measured by the number of tables they
sell and the amount they charged for them, instead the society's financial
success is measured by how successful the show was for its vendors. The
society is directly rewarded for advertising the show and getting out the
people.

When one of these shows is very successful, the 20% commission I pay is much
higher than what I would have paid at a flat fee show. On the other hand,
if people fail to show up for a show (a tropical storm the weekend of the
show) I end up paying less for my space than I would have if it had been a
flat fee show. Both risk and reward are shared by the society and the
vendors. As long as the show's sales increased over time, so did the amount
I paid to the society. It is not like my fees for these shows have not
increased, over the years the societies and their vendors have built up some
very successful shows. It is just the 20% commission rate that has remained
constant.

Pat

At the recent Merritt Huntington Symposium in Virginia Beach last weekend,
they sold table space at $200 a table. The tables are like 2 x 6 feet.
They had seven vendors that each purchased between two and four tables.
They had an attendance of 55 people over the two day symposium, even though
110 had registered. That kind of success should weed out just about all the
vendors from next year's symposium...

"Pat Brennan" wrote in message
...
In the Mid Atlantic area we also have a second type of show, the
commission show. They are part of the legacy left by Merit Huntington.
Instead of vendors taking money, the society runs a central checkout. The
society collects money, handles sales tax, processes credit cards, packs
the purchases, and provides culture info (thus the booklet Al was talking
about for the DC show). Instead of receiving a fixed table fee, the
society takes a percent of the sales (20% in most cases). These shows are
cool in that a society's financial success in not measured by the number
of tables they sell and the amount they charged for them, instead the
society's financial success is measured by how successful the show was for
its vendors. The society is directly rewarded for advertising the show
and getting out the people.

When one of these shows is very successful, the 20% commission I pay is
much higher than what I would have paid at a flat fee show. On the other
hand, if people fail to show up for a show (a tropical storm the weekend
of the show) I end up paying less for my space than I would have if it had
been a flat fee show. Both risk and reward are shared by the society and
the vendors. As long as the show's sales increased over time, so did the
amount I paid to the society. It is not like my fees for these shows have
not increased, over the years the societies and their vendors have built
up some very successful shows. It is just the 20% commission rate that
has remained constant.

Pat

I remember Merritt lobbying to disband the EOC saying there was just no
future in these type of events. Seems about right that now one of these
type of events bearing his name would have fixed price tables.

As for the numbers, they look very good for me. Maybe if I figure out the
right people to kiss up to I might score an invite for next year.


"al" wrote in message news:Coo6h.8596$tb2.8255@trnddc08...
At the recent Merritt Huntington Symposium in Virginia Beach last weekend,
they sold table space at $200 a table. The tables are like 2 x 6 feet.
They had seven vendors that each purchased between two and four tables.
They had an attendance of 55 people over the two day symposium, even
though 110 had registered. That kind of success should weed out just
about all the vendors from next year's symposium...

With 55 people in attendance and 7 of THEM vendors, you have to be invited?
Good heavens.

My plants were there but I was not. I can not afford to close the
greenhouse for two days and I don't know how to bi-locate in this body yet.

If you have a 2006 NCOS membership book send Carol Allen an email and see
what you can see. I don't think she will require much kissing, but what do
I know. Despite Carol's association with it, I think it is sponsored by
richmondorchidalliance.com

"Pat Brennan" wrote in message
...
I remember Merritt lobbying to disband the EOC saying there was just no
future in these type of events. Seems about right that now one of these
type of events bearing his name would have fixed price tables.

As for the numbers, they look very good for me. Maybe if I figure out the
right people to kiss up to I might score an invite for next year.


"al" wrote in message
news:Coo6h.8596$tb2.8255@trnddc08...
At the recent Merritt Huntington Symposium in Virginia Beach last
weekend, they sold table space at $200 a table. The tables are like 2 x
6 feet. They had seven vendors that each purchased between two and four
tables. They had an attendance of 55 people over the two day symposium,
even though 110 had registered. That kind of success should weed out
just about all the vendors from next year's symposium...