Recently Outdoor Retailer brought out some cost-cutting measures designed to ease the price pressure for manufacturers and traditional retailers. Attendance at the shows has been dragging. So booth pricing was cut along with some other stuff. It’s a start, but it does not address the challenge.

Here is the challenge.

The distribution system has changed. The minute manufacturers agreed to sell online then consumers became the 800 pound gorilla in the distribution system. They wrote product reviews. They expressed opinions on blogs. And they twittered about their purchases. They now are directly in the loop and they like it.

Traditional retailers are still players in the distribution system, but not the only player. And that is what Outdoor Retailer apparently fails to understand.

Here’s the line-up in the distribution system:

1. Traditional Retailers

2. Online Retailers

3. Small online “sellers” that are in the shadows…selling product that manufacturers may not even know about. (More about that in another blog.)

4. Manufacturers selling goods online.

5. Large Product Review Sites…these invite consumers to review, then publish to the public with relish including online links to retailers offering the product.

6. Platforms that offer a mix of brick and mortar and online.

Five of the six players in the system offer feedback loops for consumers to respond with a product review. Millions are doing so.

84% of consumers list online product reviews as key to their purchasing decision reports SIA. And I have tons of back-up research pointing to about the same thing.

Until OR addresses the consumer by opening up the Show to them for the last day, all other cost-saving measures that they employ is window dressing.

Why? Because OR is about cost-effectively selling and buying product. (We’re all in one place.) It is not about saving money. And more product can be sold and more on-the-sport feedback received when the 800 pound gorilla is in the room.

And if OR doesn’t address the changes in the distribution system, then manufacturers will be forced to.

What does that mean?

Money away from Outdoor Retailer, which will now be known as the “traditional trade show”, and money into an outdoor consumer trade show that will grow so rapidly it will make your head spin.