Attending trade shows has one big advantage: you
can directly negotiate with the supplier and hope for better prices as well as
control quality. Sourcing in Asia has usually been preferred by high volume
buyers, seeking larger margins, but these last years more and more online
individual resellers have been flying over for a sourcing spree. With the 122nd
Canton Fair right around the corner, here are a few tricks on how to be
efficient and effective.
Before the fair
Preparation is key, most sourcing experts will
say it .
Here are a few ways you can plan ahead of the trade show you’re attending, in
order to make the most of it when you’ll get there.
· Define clearly your
goals and the things you’re seeking to achieve during the show. Whether meeting
with existing partners, finding new ones or collecting ideas for specific
collections, you should have a clear to-do before entering the show.
· Schedule appointments,
preferably outside the booths of your suppliers’. A trade show is usually very
distractive and meeting in the middle of it all could result in your supplier’s
attention being divided instead of totally focused on you. For example, meeting
in food courts or relaxation areas can be a good option here.
· Plan your path across
the fair in advance, and stick with it. By erratically walking the halls and
alleys, you risk missing great opportunities.
· If you’re attending as a
team, divide the show into sections. Divide and conquer!
And now what?
After having landed on the Canton fair and made your
check-in, you will find yourself walking down in kilometers long alleys filled
with thousands of suppliers and sprinting buyers all around you. Comes the
question, thousands of products, means a lot of information, how do I deal with
it? Right, well here is how:
During the fair:
Taking successful notes during a trade show is actually a
bit more complicated than simply bringing pen and paper with you. The way you
organize your notes will help you save time afterwards, when you will have to
put them in order.
- Chose your notebook carefully, a rigid cover will
save your precious notes from disaggregating after a few days of use
- Always take pictures in the same order: first
business cards, then the booth, then the products you are interested in,
for example, to sort them easily afterwards
- Staple those business cards directly in the notebook
next to your notes to avoid mixing up your contacts
- Jot down the next steps for remembrance, such as ask
product picture quote requests or follow up on samples request
After the fair
Cleaning your notes and assembling them into useful intel
to base your follow up process upon is a rigorous process. There are, however,
a few tips and tools to help you design your follow up efforts.
- CamCard is a precious little app that will help your
digitalize your business cards and save them to an excel file, saving you
hours of transcription after the show
- Be systematic in your note transcription: order them
alphabetically or by date, in order to simplify follow up with each
supplier
- Get together! Studies have shown that buying group
decision-making tends to focus on quality, rather than other metrics such
as price. Have every member of your team put together a short slideshow to
discuss whether to move forward with the idea or not.
- Be specific in task attribution: divide
clearly follow up amongst all members of your team to avoid confusion
If you are looking into a digital solution to go
a step ahead, they are a few apps out there you could give a try. ShowSourcing, for example,
offers two platforms, a mobile App to take notes on trade fairs (you can use it
for anything: trade fairs, competition checks, factory visits,...) and a web
cloud-based software to manage and share your products within your team.
It has
already simplified the lives of many buyers, including Rudy from BeWear:
"Using ShowSourcing helped us greatly for our Asian
Sourcing. Digitalizing our process made us save an incredible amount of time
during our visits, but also during our debriefing phase and the follow-up process
afterward. The whole experience is made easy through a simplified user
dashboard, allowing a multi-service use! Synchronous editing and the
combination of the mobile app and the web app is a real strong point of
ShowSourcing. We've also been impressed by the support and reactivity of the
ShowSourcing team, at all times."
How does it work?
The App:
Downloadit for free and create your
account. While visiting a booth, the app will allow you to take pictures of
business cards, products, and ideas and save them all in a supplier sheet,
keeping all your notes organized. Most importantly, it will spare you hours of
transcription at the end of the day, as ShowSourcing allows the download of all
your notes in a handy spreadsheet. During the fair, it takes you only a few
seconds to capture each product you want to save for later review!
The Web:
After
the trade show, slide onto the web app to work on your
products with your team. Its main features include generating a slideshow in 1
click, a task manager to make sure all members of the team know their next
steps and avoid overlap, and feedback and comments functionalities. Not only
will you never lose your notes again, but you will effectively save hours
during and after each fair trade.
