I just got back from the ABC Expo in Louisville Kentucky. This is the largest baby expo in the world. There were over one thousand vendors participating in the show. For four days we had almost back to back appointments. We are a full service baby store which means we carry everything related to baby including apparel, strollers and car seats, furniture and everything in between. Since we carry every category, there was a lot for us to see. We are seeing a huge shift toward online sales in the baby industry as with many other industries. Due to this, many companies are lifting their MAP or minimum pricing policy making it harder for brick and mortar stores to compete. For example, one of our most popular car seat companies lifted MAP about 6 months ago. These seats can now be found on sites like amazon for anywhere from 20 to 35% off MSRP. Most of these sellers have very little overhead making it okay for them to make a $5 profit on a $200 sale. Since we have physical locations and employees to pay, we cannot offer these prices to our customers. In order to make our store competitive we are trying to cut out the companies who do not enforce MAP to make more room for those who do. Lucky for us, most high end baby lines do protect MAP so at the show we really focused on these companies. This show is really exciting because we are the first to see the new product innovations. The craziest new product that I saw at the show was a stroller called the Origami. This stroller has a space age design and its main act is that the stroller folds and unfolds itself at the touch of a button.  This stroller retails for over $800 dollars! We will see how the market responds to this new technology. Overall, we had a great time checking out new products and visiting with our existing vendors and representatives.

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Hi there! Welcome to my  blog! My name is Janelle and I’m a Sonoma State student as well as a buyer and manager for a local baby business in Santa Rosa called My Baby News. With five years of purchasing experience, I have been to many large buying events and have visited expos in various parts of the country. The largest baby buying expo in the US is happening this week in Kentucky.  With thousands of vendors participating it’s sure to be a busy and exciting four days. I’ll fill you on the buying process as well as what its like to be at an expo of this size. Talk you to soon!

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