off to market! an inside look at our first market trip of 2022.
Happy New Year Friends!
Greetings from Americasmart in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. My mom and I are having a blast seeing what is new for Christmas 2022! There are 3 buildings with about 20 floors each that house permanent and temporary showrooms. Two large markets happen each year, one in January and one in July, with other small markets happening throughout the year. I always attend the January and July shows. In January we buy for the following Christmas, and in July we buy for the following Spring + Summer. I know what you are thinking, how can you buy for a holiday that you just finished up with? Well, it works great because you just finished the previous season, and you know what sold and what you might need to incorporate into the next year’s theme.
Here's how it works. The factories get the company their requested samples, they set up their showrooms, buyers come in at markets and place their orders. The company then places their orders to the factories, the factories produce the item, ship it to the company and usually in the middle of July we start to receive our holiday orders. We have come to realize how fragile this system is and how easily it can break down. This past Christmas season we were still receiving holiday merchandise well into November of 2021.
I work hard to source our items from many companies, that are produced all over the world. Some countries include China, India, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Estonia, Europe and of course the US. The challenge can be finding very similar items in multiple showrooms and working through our orders to delete the items we may have found at a better price somewhere else. I thoughtfully put together our themes and choose items I feel confident our customers will love. We hand select every item and I believe we have been so successful because we get to know our customers so well.
Each year, my goal is to have one or two themes that are non-traditional and showstopping themes, along with the traditional classics many of our customers love. Last year we did a blush and iridescent theme. Spoiler Alert: our 2022 showstopper theme will be a Winter White Wool theme, with lots of milky white ornaments and tons of texture, think yarn displayed on flocked trees that are heavily spaced. I can’t wait! You will also find lots of muted tones in ivory, brown, greys, and softer greens. Love them or hate them, Gnomes are still wildly popular, and we have found some that we know will end up in your homes. My favorite children’s tree items that we found are teddy bears, they are plushy and sweet and will make kids of any age smile!
As many of you know Christmas has a special place in my heart. I grew up on a Christmas Tree Farm run by my family. We planted trees in the spring, sheared them in the summer, and harvested in the fall. What I always enjoyed most was knowing we were a part of each families’ Christmas memories. That is the same hope I have for our A to Zinnia family, that they can have a little piece of something that we hand-picked for them in their homes to celebrate with every year.
Follow along with us this year to see how great Christmas 2022 is going to be. Thank you for letting us serve you these past 10 years. That’s right, this summer will be our 10-year anniversary (stay tuned for more fun details on this celebration).
You know what they say - time flies when you’re having fun! I can hardly believe it and we couldn’t have done it without you.
My thanks and blessings to you,
Heather
