NEW YORK—An impressive variety of goods from vendors spanning the globe beckoned to retail store owners visiting the Javits Center Monday. Many business owners attend to select products for the upcoming holiday season.
The New York International Gift Fair, running for five days, and ending Wednesday, is rivaled only by a similar show in Atlanta.
Handcrafted Gifts
Peter Priess owns a company in Vienna, Austria, that sells decorations for the holiday season. He employs local artisans who work from home and hand paint glass balls, which are then crafted into ornaments.
Although he was disappointed with the event organizers’ decision to decrease the number of days by one, Priess finds it worth his while to travel to New York City for the gift fair. His products are stocked in stores across the city, including garden centers and garment stores.
Brian Ledig and his wife Marykate Fleming manufacture gifts for children, including music boxes and a storybook titled, “The Tale of the Tooth Fairy.” Ledig wrote the story and Fleming illustrated it; they are working on three more books.
“This is one of the shows you gotta do. It’s pretty much, you go to the shows, the stores come in, and they buy the product,” Ledig, based in Northern California, told The Epoch Times. There are similar shows on the West Coast, “but they’re not big” like in New York City and Atlanta.
Yet Ledig has noticed fewer buyers from the West Coast this year. “It used to be that people would spend $3,000 to $4,000 to go to a show, but now the budgets are too tight,” he said.
Their company, MK & Company, sells to New York City stores such as Nordstrom and West Side Kids.
Other companies saw many national and international buyers. Baby Legs, which sells leg and arm warmers, saw buyers from Japan, Germany, and South America.
Sanoma Contractor’s father began a successful business 35 years ago on Long Island City. It was so successful that he named her after the company. The company’s products are sold across the Americas to businesses in countries such as Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Canada.
A. Sanoma Inc. manufactures and distributes goods such as lanterns, which are hand blown and etched in the Himalayan Mountains. Sanoma’s father Kuldip takes trips to visit his workers every three or four weeks, and Sanoma spent eight months there after graduating from high school and before beginning a master of business administration program at Duke.
Tony Murray distributes luxury watch products that are made in Switzerland, including watch winders starting at $795. A new line in September aiming for a younger demographic will begin at $450. He also sells, from his New Hampshire distribution center, watchcases, starting at $900 for one capable of holding six watches, and luxury backgammon and chess sets for $1,250. Most of the products are made with top-grade leather and wood, he said.
Murray supplies jewelry and watch stores such as Wempe on Fifth Avenue, but was “trying to widen the market by coming to this gift show,” he said. “We got sales leads here and took orders for a couple hundred cases, but we'll have to see after the show because some people like to personalize it a bit more for their store.”
Murray was hoping to see representatives from general retail stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. He had seen buyers from the United Kingdom, Venezuela, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Buyers
Arlene Abrams owns Bubbe Love, an online company that only sells products made in America. She has been coming to the gift fair for about 30 years.
“Everything you can imagine is here, fresh and new, and very inviting to purchase,” she said. She was in a good mood and noted how the event “just seems to be more lively” than in the past.
Alyson Two Eagles and Jeff Childress, owners of Ironwood, a retail store in downtown Denver, came to the gift show for the first time. They were looking for a unique set of items, mostly antiques, along with “found objects,” plants, and art.
They came with few expectations as first-timers, and found “a handful of things” that they were looking for. As for impressions of the event, Two Eagles said it was “pretty impressive in scope.”
The gift fair, spanning four floors of Javits Center, has more than 2,800 vendors and expects about 35,000 attendees over five days ending Wednesday, Aug. 22.
One vendor relayed a story about a buyer who had a pedometer on her wrist, recording how far she had walked. During her day at the gift fair, the buyer had walked 19 miles.
The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
