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Commentary
From Our President
Spring is a busy time for trade associations, conferences, conventions and special events. Worked on for months, these industry events attract thousands of retailers, distributors, manufacturers and brokers. March and April are traditionally, times of great expectations. But this year is different. The bad economic climate is hurting trade show attendance. The issues, of course, are time and money especially among retailers who affect the flow of funding for many conventions and associations. GMDC, the only trade association focused exclusively on supermarket non-foods, is not insulated from the recession. It currently serves 678 diversified non-foods members. We have no pipeline into GMDC management, but it’s no secret that they are anxious about the attendance for their first conference of the year, a four-day event focusing on General Merchandise, being held in Dallas on May 28 through June 3. GMDC has been through hard times before, mainly because of mass consolidations among supermarket retailers, distributors and suppliers, which resulted in fewer members. But they have survived and prospered, thanks to a more inclusive and resilient membership policy. Originally an association of grocery wholesalers when it was organized 39 years ago in 1970, GMDC—based in Colorado Springs, Co.-- took a big step forward in 1987 by admitting direct-buying grocery chains. Membership rolls were further expanded to include service distributors as well as non-direct grocery chains and club stores. In 1988, membership was opened even further to include mass merchant retailers, drug chains and e-commerce channels. Today, its membership claim over 90 different retailer/wholesalers, including Kroger, Wegmans and Supervalu and several New England grocery chains (Big Y, Price Chopper, and Stop & Shop). Wal-Mart and Walgreens are members too. The supplier membership includes 185 Health, Beauty & Wellness companies and more than 375 GM Companies. GMDC’s combined retail and wholesale members represent over 125,000 retail outlets and more than $500 billion in retail sales. On the basis of size and heft of its membership alone, GMDC should be taken seriously. How can this solid, innovative organization--the only representative of mass market non-foods, delivering two major marketing conferences a year, with a slew of services and non-foods research projects, be facing hard times? On the retail/distributor side, the cost in dollars to send people could hardly be less. GMDC pays for air travel, hotel accommodations and most of the meals. As for time away from the office—it’s only two days since the balance of events takes place over the weekend. As for suppliers, these are not only hard times, but competitive times. GMDC retail/distributors are CUSTOMERS who are serving CONSUMERS. In today’s tough economic climate, this is no time to wait for sales to come in over the transom. David Pinto, publisher of Mass Merchandiser and Chain Drug Review put it this way - “This is no time for cutbacks or reductions, at the expense of doing business.” So GMDC is keeping its eye focused on non-foods marketing and merchandising. GMDC recently inked an agreement with FMI’s Supermarket Pharmacy Conference to co-locate the pharmacy meeting with GMDC’s September HBC conference in Orlando, FL. and also just announced an expansion of its Internet program with a special newsletter devoted to non-foods. At Imperial, we have always sent a sizeable contingent to GMDC, typically execs and category managers. Besides the advantages of its programs, we have found that on a networking level alone, the trip is well worth our time and effort. The intra-company camaraderie and outside contacts have proven to be invaluable over the years. So we continue to support GMDC with no cutbacks in our attendance. It’s not just good for the association—it’s GOOD FOR US! GMDC educates and inspires us to build sales and profits for our valued retailers and gives us an appreciation for our association which consistently raises the banner for non-foods. For comments or questions, contact us by phone at 508-756-5156, or e-mail: msleeper@imperialdistributors.com
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GMDC – Raises the Banner for Non-Foods