Reflecting back on this year’s SHOT Show, I have mixed reviews. For one, the absence of many non-essential people made it much easier to maneuver the aisles on the way to meetings and avoided the 5 minute scramble of someone trying to find the person we were scheduled to see. Coming off two record years for our industry, attitudes were very positive. Our vendor partners are still hesitant to offer any special programs as there are still pockets of strong demand. However, we are starting to see the inevitable slowdown and the accompanying overstocks. Despite our best efforts, it’s impossible to perfectly predict when to shut orders down while still capitalizing on sales opportunities. That’s why vendor communication is critical and a unified voice from NASGW members is needed. So now we press forward and get creative again in our business strategies, something we tend to ignore when demand draws inventory down and customers are eager to prepay to get more.
Speaking of SHOT Show, there was an announcement from NASGW that may have gotten lost with everything else going on. On Tuesday, NASGW announced a partnership with Coreware to add 300+ additional retailers to the quickly growing list of dealers feeding data to SCOPE CLX. Once these new store data feeds are fully up and running, SCOPE CLX will be pushing 600 retail feeds. |
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