CAMEX in Tee Ex
CAMEX stands for Campus Market Expo.
That’s right, folks. We are back from the great state of Texas where Parker Planners saw it’s first national-size trade show. We had a blast, it was so much fun. The place was huge. There were about 1000 companies selling things to college bookstores and about the same number of buyers there. Our humble booth was in the new exhibitor pavilion and we had quite a few visitors. We’d like to welcome our newest friends to the family of Parker Planners. We added 46 new stores around the nation. We now sell to great schools in Hawaii, California, Texas, Louisiana, Iowa, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and many more!
Benjie and I were fortunate to be able to stay with my sister to help us feel a little more at home. Texas has a pretty crazy carpool lane. #1 it’s nearly impossible to find the entrance, #2 once you’re in the HOV lane there is no escape, high concrete walls on either side. And #3 when you achieve the feat of driving on it you feel a great sense of rock flowing through your veins. It’s like eating helium. Or nitrogen. In solid form, but way better. Because it’s like 2 stories above the rest of the road you get to look down at all the poor traffic-experiencing folk. Poor folk.
The show went well and it was quite the adventure. One of the most fun parts about it was all the other vendors there. Nestle had a booth where I got to try a bunch of new flavors of beauty. They had horchata, jamaica, and tamarindo. If you’ve ever had friends from Mexico you know what those are. I liked the horchata pretty good. Also a got a free pink rubbery watch which I gave to my sister, a ream of paper made from sugar cane, and a booklet made -literally- of elephant poo. Yes. It’s called Poo Poo paper. Non-believers click here. We made some great contacts and are excited to fulfill all the orders.
I also got to see Blake Mycoskie speak live. He’s the founder of TOMS shoes. He did a great job and I really want to incorporate his style into my business or a future business. A week ago on Tuesday April 5 was national no-shoes day. I didn’t wear shoes for that day 
It was great. Going to the grocery store was pretty cool, ha ha.
Here’s me at our table. We had candy, worked well.
The three of us. We brought Boston the intern on this trip to help sell.
One product at the show was a toaster that burns your school logo onto the piece of toast. Nice.
Thanks for reading! This week we just surpassed 300 fans on facebook and the peasants rejoice!!
We’re still working hard on the iPhone app and it should be out in about a month. Hold your breath it’s going to rock.
Ethan