First Day at the Atlanta Market 2019

This market trip we flew out of Columbus, MS instead of driving to Memphis. This turned out to be a really good experience. Traffic was much less on the road to Columbus and parking was Golden Triangle Regional Airport was a breeze. Going through security was easy also since we were "pre-check" this time. We did have to walk out of the airport to get to the plane...but that's okay because we got to leave our bags at the gate! Did you know Delta charges $30 for even a carry on size bag if you check it. The flight was just as expected, no hitches or bumps along the way and we did deplane right into the airport and didn't have to unload on the tarmac. Picking up our carry on was easy and we set off to the Plane Train. If you've never been to the Atlanta airport....it's a pretty big place. The Plane Train is a subway type train system within the airport to get you to your gate or baggage pickup. Once we headed out of the airport we went straight to the MARTA station. Using the MARTA is an inexpensive way to travel around Atlanta. Now our experience has mainly been from the airport to the hotel and back, but we've been doing this for years without any problems. You have to purchase a Breeze card. It cost something like a dollar and you can reuse it, just apply more money to it for your transfers when you get to the station. Once on the MARTA there are guidelines to show you what the stop are and there is an app you can download. We exited at Peachtree Street and headed off to Building 1. When you exit the MARTA at the Peachtree stop, you will realize how far underground you really are, the escalators up to the street level are long and steep. Once we checked in with registration and got our badges, we checked our coats and bags and headed off to find the RAZ showroom. We've been coming to market for several years now, so registration is very easy for us, but if you're going to market for the first time, you really need to review the requirements and start applying early, at least several weeks before the market date you're attending. You are required to provide several documents like tax ID, proof of your business, proof of previous orders, references.....and a long list of things. Usually on our first day, we like to just browse around and check out our favorite showrooms. There are places on several of the floors where you can get a bite to eat and snacks.....but hold off! So many of the showrooms have everything from water, soft drinks, wine, beer, etc....that there is no need to purchase anything to drink or snack on during the day. Some of the showrooms also provide full meals at lunch and dinner......be careful.....it's easy to snack yourself into oblivion. Here's a few images from our browsing today. Keep in mind, these product we are looking at will be for the 2019 fall and winter season. Once our orders are placed at market, they won't start arriving to Trendy Tree until summertime. There are spring items in the showroom, and these can still be ordered, but the main purpose for our trip is to "prebook" items for later in the year. We will come back in July to order for the spring season. If you liked black and white buffalo plaid or check this past season......it's still popular for the 2019 season! Here's a few pics. Aren't these tree topper snowman heads the cutest! Not sure which one will be the most popular. They are sold as an assortments, so when you buy them, you get one of each style. I'm going to bed the one with the checked hat will be the most popular.....but the old standby of the solid black hat....gosh, you could use him for years and years. There were ball ornaments and plaid ball sprays. Love the natural ribbon with the black checked edge and buttons too. Love these poinsettias with the little puffy ball edge. The silver jingle bells in the center add a little touch of whimsy. Just a simple wicker basket filled with greenery and some cotton bolls and then a black white checked bow.....simple and easy to do! I took this pic because I wanted to try to remember to do this next Christmas. Love simple elegance. You could re-create this centerpiece with fresh greenery too. This was a unique item, even though it's a little hard to tell exactly what it would like in this image. It's a tree collar, about 48" and you put it around the bottom of your tree. Even the elves were dressed in black and white. I just love lanterns and really like they way they had these staggered candles nestled among some greenery. There seemed to be a lot of natural style decorations in the RAZ showroom, lots of pine and cedar, rustic, grapevine and natural textures. You really can't tell it in this image, but these were big balls! They were probably 10 and 14" in diameter. The tree was huge and had this huge glittered twig balls. That greenery on the left of the image was some kind of a hanging pick too. This was a shot of the top of a tree, again notice the huge twig balls, but also there were these metal orbs which were kind of unique. We saw this same style in the iron ball thing when we were shopping for light fixtures for our house this year. This tree was just decorated with all natural things.....I'll get more images later during the trip if possible. Time to call it a day here....but we have more images to share and will do our best to show them to you over the next few days. If you like any of the items we've shown so far, please go back to the Facebook post listed below and let us know. We'll be checking our Facebook page for comments. That helps point us in the right direction for things that we need to order. Here's the link: Trendy Tree Facebook Post