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As the calendar year draws to a close, many businesses begin to slow down while employees settle into a holiday routine. But for retailers, the holidays are anything but stagnant.
They can feel less like riding out the final weeks of the year and more like riding a rocket ship to the finish line.
Holiday sales can provide a welcome boost for many and a life raft for others. While retail owners and employees are busy stocking shelves, marketing their offers and interfacing with customers, it’s easy to forget that the road to many of these sales began six months ago at a trade show in Florida.
In July, 14,000 retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and media members spanning the entire spectrum of the recreational sportfishing world converged at ICAST, the world’s largest sportfishing trade show. Inside a pop-up city made of cabins, lounges, simulated tackle shops and testing areas, attendees filtered through booths representing more than 950 global brands. They got hands-on with thousands of brand new products that are now being gift-wrapped for fishing fanatics worldwide.
Retailer and podcast host Dave Kranz has run Dave’s Bait, Tackle & Taxidermy outside of Chicago, Illinois for more than 40 years. In that time, the veteran retailer says he’s come to rely on ICAST items to help family members pick out gifts for their fishing-obsessed loved ones. “Many family members of my customers come in to buy a gift certificate for them during the holidays,” says Kranz. “If new products come in that I ordered at ICAST, I have an opportunity to sell them a stocking filler that I’m confident they don’t have. It’s a great way to get an add-on sale.”
Kranz says he utilises ICAST as a place to see new products from factories before making the rounds at regional dealer shops later in the year. “If I order new products at ICAST I’m way at the front of the line and may get them before my competitors.”
Manufacturer Ryan Grubbs spent three days inside ICAST this year meeting and greeting retailers, media and colleagues from the pulsing heart of the show floor. Grubbs, National Account Manager for Star brite, Inc. and Ocean Bio-Chem, Inc., says relationships built at ICAST often turn into partnerships that benefit both manufacturers and retailers. Manufacturers benefit from the opportunity to form bonds in-person. Meanwhile, retailers get to know products on a more intimate level that helps to ultimately create more educated consumers.
“The magnitude of the people coming into your booth is different at ICAST. When you get retailers coming through and get to meet with the buyers, it makes a difference. You can sit down and network, and you don’t always talk shop. You get to take them to dinner. You get to build relationships with people that go beyond the business.”
Presented annually by the American Sportfishing Association (ASA), ICAST is the flagship trade show for tackle dealers around the world. At ICAST 2024, 983 newly-minted SKUs shimmered on display for attendees to inspect at the ICAST New Product Showcase. At the nearby ICAST Fly Shop, a simulated fly fishing shop and nearby casting pond made sure buyers had the chance to test products for themselves.
Meanwhile, daily Lunch & Learn seminars brought trendsetting industry knowledge on artificial intelligence, consumer trends, social media and marketing right to retailers in real-time.
ICAST is not only about its buzzing show floor, though. While the show floor is open from Wednesday to Friday, ICAST features a full week of break-out activities ranging from the Lunkers & Bunkers golf tournament on Monday to the ICAST Cup bass fishing tournament and ICAST On the Water Demo Day on Tuesday—all before the show floor officially opens.
“That really is an important thing,” adds Grubbs. “We feel that the personal touch that you get to add at ICAST is really what makes the show special.” For a sizeable portion of customers, those connections will ripple far beyond Orlando and all the way to their homes this holiday season.
