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Exclusively HBA gets a thumbs up

NEW ORLEANS - The second annual Exclusively HBA show, which ran here earlier this month, had some weak spots, but as a whole attendees rated it fairly high and many small to mid-size vendor companies said they had a great show.

Many of the retailers who attended also gave the show good marks, with plenty to see and lots of leads to follow up.

Although the show is primarily skewed to mass merchandise accounts, wholesale membership clubs and wholesaler/distributors, there were a fair number of drug chains in attendance.

According to Jay Spaulding, the show's principal and ceo, drug chains accounted for 10 percent of the companies in attendance and 13 percent of the buyers.

Among the major drug companies walking the floor this year were American Drug, Big B, Harco, K&B, Drug Emporium, Revco, Sid's Get it For Less and Thrifty.

As it turned out, many drug and food chains did elect to pass on this show because, as several told us, it duplicates so much of what they've seen at trade shows sponsored by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and the Food Marketing Institute. However, the consensus among the drug and food retailers who came was that the show was worth attending.

"If you're in drug store business, you have to be here," said Vincent Bruno, vp of merchandising for Big B.

Jim Harrison III of Harco Drug and Cyrus Miller, drug and paper buyer for K&B, made similar comments.

As Spaulding pointed out "this is the only show devoted exclusively to health and beauty aid items, with no distractions from general merchandise companies or food and beverage companies."

All trade classes

It is also show that welcomes participation from all trade classes, giving buyers and vendors alike a unique opportunity to meet and mingle with all types of retail operations, ranging from mega-volume wholesale membership clubs to the neighborhood drug or health and beauty aids store.

Mass merchandisers and warehouse club operators in particular like this approach. Rich Sherman, HBA merchandise manager for Pace Membership warehouses, said that "we have the opportunity to meet the right people."

Kim Maquire, divisional merchandise manager for Target stores, pointed out that Target was able to bring eight people to the show and that they "got to meet many people we would only get to see maybe once a year."

Jim Woodruff, vp/division merchandise manager for Wal Mart, also praised the show on practical grounds. "We used to attend four shows," he said, "now we're able to condense all that into one show." He also said that "this is purely a working show," unlike others that feature a lot of expensive social activities.

Spaulding said that with 541 buyers and 340 manufacturer companies in attendance, the 1991 Exclusively HBA show was the "only trade event with a ratio of 1.5 buyers for every supplier company."

"A touch disappointed'

Spaulding also conceded he was "a touch disappointed that we didn't reach our stated goal of 1,000 buyers in attendance, but our other goal was have over 300 manufacturers, and we achieved that.

"Now our goal next year is to get those 1,000 retailers and to have over 400 manufacturers in attendance."

He also pointed out that the show attracted 25 percent more manufacturers than it had its first year, and that there were 276 retailers/distributor companies at the show this year, compared to just 176 in 1990, an increase of 57 percent.

COPYRIGHT 1991 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
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