Rodeo vendors find new shoppers through grassroots Facebook page
As both a farmer’s daughter and a farmer’s wife, Tammy Black understands tough times. She built her Black Market Boots business through smart decisions and hard work, and had high hopes for her first time as a vendor at the 2020 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
She’d invested more than $80,000 in inventory for what she hoped would be a great show, only to find herself packing up and heading home when RodeoHouston was canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I know what the show was capable of, and I was counting on it. Will I overcome it? I think I can,” Black said. “It’s not the first time I had something blow up in my face, but this will be hard, very hard.”
Dozens of other vendors worried how they’d cover their losses, many of them small businesses without storefronts — and potentially facing financial ruin with no other shows in the foreseeable future. For these vendors, their rodeo business is the retail equivalent of Christmas.
Cara Adams saw the trouble immediately. The Memorial mother of two young children had launched a Hurricane Moms Memorial Facebook page more than two years ago after Hurricane Harvey and saw the potential of social media for doing good.
She sprang into action, enlisting her friend, Nicole LopezCummins and later a handful of others to help her manage a new page — 2020 Houston Rodeo Vendors — where rodeo vendors list their products and websites, and shoppers can buy the jewelry, clothing, boots, furniture and food products they may never have had a chance to see.
In its first 24 hours, the page had more than 77,000 members, and by late Monday, the list had grown to more than 140,000. In its first 24 hours, Adams was so busy approving new members that she didn’t even have time to count the number of vendors who opted in, but over the weekend she heard from many who were doing well, such as DGZ Chocolates, who tallied 2,000 sales by Sunday morning.
“They’re so appreciative to have this page and connect with people who want to buy from them,” Adams said. “I didn’t think about it when we started, but now people can shop these rodeo vendors year-round.”
It’s where Black, as well as Adonis Alexander (Diverscity Clothing), Bubba Murphy (Murphy’s Buckles of Texas, the official rodeo buckles), Christina
McAllen (Christina Greene jewelry and handbags), Madeline Wagner (Something New jewelry cleaner) and others are hoping to sell their goods.
Alexander had been busy working on Houston-centric T-shirt designs when he was laid off from his job at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2017. He launched his Diverscity Clothing business with original designs showcasing Houston’s diversity and sports teams.
He understood the life of the rodeo retail scene: the first week is slow, then HISD’s spring break hits and everything gets rolling. So just as vendors were about to hit their stride, they had to pack up all of their unsold goods and go home.
“That Facebook page reminds me of Hurricane Harvey. This community knows how to step up,” said Alexander, who sells inventory at diverscityclothingco.com and will sell his Astros designs at the HTX Fan Tavern across from Minute Maid Park when the team’s season gets underway.
Wagner has been a RodeoHouston vendor for 20 years and McAllen launched her business with a booth in 2014.
It’s a godsend for Wagner, who Friday morning was scrambling to buy boxes to ship out dozens of jewelry cleaning kits she’d sold online because of Adams. On her website, she’s offering 30 percent off for RodeoHouston customers and she’ll be back in Houston in mid-April for the Nutcracker Spring Market, unless it’s canceled, too.
“The last two weeks are when you make your money,” said Wagner, who’d brought cases of ultrasonic jewelry cleaning machines and 3,000 bagged jewelry cleaning kits to sell. “The first week’s sales pay hotel expenses and employees, so we hadn’t hit the profit point yet. Now I’m trying to make enough sales to cover my costs and break even and keep our doors open to make a profit another day.”
Wagner said she’d generally do $100,000 in sales during the full run, with a $30,000-$35,000 profit. When the rodeo closed midweek, she’d only done $20,000 in sales.
McAllen noted that she’ll still sell her jewelry and handbags through her Christina Greene showroom on South Boulevard near Rice Village, she’ll just have more inventory than she anticipated and won’t have to get more for a while.
“This reminds me of Hurricane
Harvey when we all came together. It’s not just Texas strong, it’s Houston strong,” McAllen said. “Everyone wants to do what they can to help the vendors and the children who didn’t get to show their (animals) — whatever we can do to help each other out.
Bubba Murphy has been making the official RodeoHouston buckle for 40 years, and said repeat customers buy his limitededition wares as collectibles.
“I’ve been around a long time — I was in the Marine Corps and served in Vietnam — so things don’t get to me too much. Whatever happens, things will work through; that’s the way I was raised,” said Murphy, who is 70. “Everyone is calling wanting to order buckles. It’s very heartfelt that people are doing this.”