U-ber
We are finally back home after our trip to Atlanta and happy to be back at PJP Nifong. And if you are curious, as of yesterday, you can buy every single piece of Kansas City Chiefs AFC Champions merchandise at the Kansas City airport. While people were lining up for the $30 t-shirts, the entrepreneur in me could only think about the risk the company took when they paid for all those shirts to be printed before the Chiefs ACTUALLY WON THE GAME.
But I digress. (Except if they had lost, where do all those shirts go?)
Since so many of you followed along with our Instastories while we were are at AtlantaMart, I got A LOT of questions about how it all worked. So here are the answers:
Can anyone go to AtlantaMart? Sadly not. It’s open only to entities purchasing wholesale for resale to the consumer. Most items are sold in quantities of two, four, six or more and most stores have a minimum opening purchase of $500 or more. That certainly doesn’t mean that when we receive six of a super cute item, one doesn’t go directly to my house since I am also a consumer. Ahem.
Is it a building or a convention center or what? It is a set of three buildings, all connected by walkways built over the streets below. Building One houses furniture, art, rugs, holiday, and floral. Building Two houses gift and housewares. And Building Three houses apparel and temporaries - those smaller companies who sell during the market and then pack it all up and take it all back to their stores. (The bigger companies have permanent showrooms.)
Is it crowded? Yep. But it is oddly comforting because you are reminded that there are thousands of business owners trying to figure out what works in their stores. You hear a lot of snippets of conversations that sound like “I don’t know…do you think we can afford that?”, followed up by “well if you are going to commit to the product, you should carry ALL of it.” It’s quite informative. And reassuring.
What do you do there besides shop? Walk. Walk. And walk some more. We averaged around 15,000 steps a day. You walk to shops and think about things and then circle back around to look again. And some things, you discuss at night in the hotel for clarity and then decide if you are going back to purchase or not.
How did Jeanne hold up? She did great on Friday and Sunday. She was WORN OUT on Saturday. She was overwhelmed by all the things to look at and think about for PJP. She enjoyed it much more than I guessed she would.
Was that really her first Uber ride? Indeed, it was. She pronounces it U-ber and overall, deemed it much more functional than a taxi. We went to The Melting Pot and ate a tremendous amount of cheese with no regrets. And then we U-ber’d back.
Did you buy a lot for PJP? We did! All sorts of fun new merchandise is headed our way over the next few months. We also got ourselves together like some legit professionals and ordered a fair amount of Christmas, to be delivered this fall.
Christmas? Yes. People are cutthroat about holiday pre-ordering. Mark my words: Christmas 2020 will all be about gnomes. You heard it here first. (No, we didn’t buy any…but we thought about it.)
What are you most excited about? . There is so much cute stuff coming and that is super exciting. But honestly, we found a wholesale source for ceramic pie weights. I ordered a bunch for use at the store AND a bunch for sale in the shop.
Are you going back this summer? Yep. When else can you buy Valentine’s Day items?
