Boon Or Boondoggle?

One of the biggest sales days of the year is approaching: Black Friday. This event can be a boon to retailers, but it can also be a boondoggle. They key is proper planning, as Miles Hall explains in The Simple Truth (page XX). But it’s more than just that; Miles and his team went out of their way to create a warm, inviting atmosphere where their guests could enjoy themselves. There was no mad scramble for merchandise or squabbling in the aisles among agitated shoppers, scenarios that social media loves to showcase. Take his advice to heart.

Miles also notes that SHOT Show is a great place to begin preparations for Black Friday. And since SHOT Show is just around the corner, this month on page XX you’ll find an article that outlines why attendance at this annual event is so important—not only to retailers, but to manufacturers, distributors, and marketers as well.

With so many booths, there is a lot to see, which means my schedule, like any attendee, gets quite crowded. But over the past couple of years I have made a special effort to reserve time for the Supplier Showcase. Instituted by the NSSF a few years ago, the Supplier Showcase is designed to be a dedicated event for suppliers to display their shooting, hunting, and outdoor material supplies off the main trade show floors. Initially, the Supplier Showcase was a one-day event on the day before the SHOT Show opened, but the response by attendees and exhibitors has been so encouraging that it is now a two-day event.

Attendees last year were able to meet with more than 500 suppliers who offered countless materials and solutions for attendees’ manufacturing needs. If you use or produce tools, machinery, plastics, fabrics, OE materials, logistics, software, or other products and services for the shooting, hunting, outdoor and law enforcement industries, then the Supplier Showcase is an opportunity to connect with a wide range of manufacturers and other industry professionals.

The year Supplier Showcase debuted, I sent a writer upstairs for a short feature in SHOT Daily. He came downstairs about an hour later and told me to come with him. “You gotta see this,” he said. He was right.

This issue also marks the third installment of “Innovators and Influencers,” a feature in which we highlight ten members of the shooting sports community for their contributions to our industry and the community at large (page XX). And like the previous two, we see a wide range of people, from those who specialize in sales and distribution to classic tinkerers whose mission in life is to build better mousetraps. There’s also the buying group that during the pandemic took the lemon it was handed and made lemonade by creating a new business model. It was one smart move.