The much anticipated NACS Show in Atlanta has passed. What were the highlights? What did you think of the workshops? What did you think of the host city, Atlanta? What did you think of the layout? What are your thoughts on the tobacco category after attending the show? Share your thoughts!
NACS SHOW 2007
November 10th, 2007 | Conferences, Nacs | Lou Maiellano
17 comments ↓
Great show in Atlanta. Traffic was bad, but turnout seemed ok. I heard a lot of chains talking about food, the snus and should they or shouldn’t they drop EDLP. When will the lazy chain buyers finally decide to drop EDLP and make some profits?
It was a great show for me as I had an agenda. I didn’t like the fact that the halls were so far apart from each other. I lost a lot of time walking from b to c and then the traffic was horrific. Never got to see some folks that I wanted to see. Took me an hour to go to dinner two of the nights and I was within a mile of the restaurants. Oh and why was the tobacco all over the place and disjointed. Very disappointed that there was no tobacco related workshop. I thought tobacco was a huge part of the cstore business. It is in my stores! Oh well thats some of my thoughts after a tiring trip.
Big Change in Big 2 Supplier booths…. Note the difference between this year’s PMI/RJ exibits and previous?
Hey J. Lewis it was interesting as they were the only tobacco players that brought any excitement to the tobacco category. It was pretty neat! Did you get to shoot any clays and the Camel Snus booth was really cool!
Yea the PM and RJR booths were cool because they are ruining your business each day. Especially RJR with EDLP.
The show was one of the best I attended in the last 5 years. Indeed it was to spread out! Finally some smart comments on the idiotic RJR EDLP program.
DJ can you elaborate on what you mean?
It was a great show for us, but I did enjoy having it at Atlanta. The traffic caused us to miss a few after show events and it took an hour each day to get to and from the show. After long hard days, we just don’t need the added stress.
I found the show to be very helpful but Atlanta is a horrible place for this show. The traffic as others mentioned was just miserable. It was a gridlock at times. Parking was great! The trade show layout seemed very fragmented. It was a great time overall!
Pretty interesting to see RJR raising all the prices on the oddball brands. It would be a wonderful day if they do away with their ridiculous EDLP program. I remember a few years back when it was a real program. Now it’s all about fixing cig pricing at the low end. I took my stores off the program two years ago and I have seen great growth across all pricing tiers. It’s all about customer count folks! It’s all about moving more people thru those doors. It’s not all about Reynolds and them being profitable at my expense. I can’t take their p/l to my bank! When I made the decision my Reynolds business actually GREW! I had more traffic in my store and sold more cigs!!!!
RJR had to raise their prices. How do you think they paid for that booth?!?!?!
I also noticed the booth had a hologram effect. If you tilted your head the right way you could see the profile of a short, red-headed Irishman. What a tribute!
I noticed the same hologram effect, except the short red-headed Irishman had a hatchet in his hand when I looked. Thank God and Greyhound he is gone!
Looks like RJR is just milking those old brands. I laughed the other day when someone mentioned that they are now super premium cigs. Yeah right.
I went to NACS and I’m still trying to catch up with folks I never got to see. Why wasn’t tobacco in it’s own section. Why no tobacco breakout? Still a very large part of my business. Makes me look forward to the Tobacco show coming in Vegas. Oh and the traffic was just horrible.
Hey in reading all the blogging here does any one know why NACS seems to overlook tobacco? I understand they want to help retailers become more profitable by developing food programs but tobacco is still over 40% of my store sales. And I’ve been actually looking to grow this by introducing some of the newer tobacco delivery products like snus, lozenges, gum & gel as I expand the offer! Really puzzles me that they don’t see the effort being put forth by Big Tobacco!
Any one know where NACS is being held this year and when? Hope not in Atlanta!
NACS Show 2008
From: Saturday, October 4, 2008
To: Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Location: McCormick Place
Chicago, IL
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