BEA 2018: Post-Show Reflection
June 8, 2018
After a sweltering set-up day, cooler temperatures (along with a large number of buyers) descended on the annual BookExpo America (BEA) in New York City from May 30-June 1. This year marked Book Depot’s 19th consecutive year exhibiting at the show. It’s hard to believe how far we have come from our humble beginnings of a 10’ x 20’ booth with only an owner, a sales rep, and a handful of samples.
This year we had a large assortment of titles on display in our booth, which included over 6,000 full samples from a range of categories and another 1,300 adult fiction and young adult fiction book covers. With the London Book Fair only six short weeks ago, we knew that we would be seeing some familiar faces at BEA and wanted to make sure we had new product to show them. One of the great things about Book Depot is our constant flow of new product so it was nice to hear from customers that attended both that they were happy to see so many new titles. In fact, almost 50% of our booth were titles that we did not have in London. For those of you that shop our new arrivals page regularly on our website, you know exactly what we mean about adding new product constantly!
The title mix combined with new product must have been the secret recipe because sales were fantastic at the show. Business was very brisk for the first two days before the typical decline in traffic on the final day. Also, having a full day available for us to meet with customers before the official beginning of the show on May 31st was certainly a welcome change and we thank the show organizers for making this happen. Dave Wiggins, Book Depot’s Sales Director, commented “It’s nice to see such a buzz and it seems like the industry is alive and well!”
Thanks again to all our loyal customers that stopped by to place orders or just say hello. It was good to reconnect with everyone and hear from you about what you like and what we can improve on in the months and years to come. For those new customers that we met, we look forward to working together and being your bargain book supplier! We are working hard to get all your orders shipped (many of which have already left) and look ahead in anticipation of what the future will bring.
Please note that if you would like a list of the titles that were on display at BEA, contact your sales representative or email [email protected] and we would be happy to provide that for you.
Happy Selling!
Book Depot Sales Team
“After a sweltering set-up day ….”
It’s been a number of years since I’ve experienced the joy of BEA/ABA set up, but good to see traditions remain! Ah, the days of a loose shirt and shorts.
Michael Walsh