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Bill,These shows have gotten so costly to do for a dealer and the returns have been mediocre at best. I think more dealers might be looking to do more promoting in their own store. I will say this most dealers could offer a better deal at their store they could at a home show. There are those who only do home shows like the so called Master dealer in my area all he does is shows.
I have put my home show participation on hold for a time. The unavoidable issue with Home Shows is selling time, which is about 40 hours over three days. The space required to display enough tubs is large and expensive, and all other overhead items are costly too. State Fairs last 10 days or so, and that overhead is proportionately greater than the weekend show. When you start to break down time needed to sell a hot tub from start to finish, as much as three hours and divide that into the duration of the show, the situation becomes a diminishing return. Good luck
Just bought my Hotspring spa yesterday from the Harrisburg Home Show from a local dealer. I just happened to ask how many sales they average over the 9 day show. He replied that he usualy sells between 70 & 80 spas. Figure nearly $5,000 in pocket from each sale (roughly 50% of the average sale) and that's $35,000+ in 9 days...not to mention the residual sales from the advertisment that people at the show see (wordy, I know). Don't know about you, but that sounds pretty darn good to me. Am I missing something?Sport
well you might be missing a few things. The first being that most dealers are not doing anywhere close to 70 to 80 spas at your average home show. Now there are those markets that are very good for home shows but if you live in area like So Cal where you can find a home show like show just about every weekend somewhere they just don't pack the same impact that a place that maybe has one or two a year would. Also I am confused about your math 70 spas you say at $5000.00 profit if I read your post correctly (which I do not think is even close) would $350,000.00 not 35,000.00 so I am not sure if it is me or are your numbers off.
That could explain the fly-by-night companies that only do shows Seriously, take what ever number of spas you were told were sold, and divide by at least 3.......... probably more like 6 or 8
Although that sounds more reasonable, I would have to ask what the operation costs are for 9 days at a home show. 50% of say 14 spas, which is 70 divided 5 times, is only around $7,000+/-. Granted, I'm no business man, but that doesn't sound like it's worth while.