A Visitor’s Guide to Trade Fairs

Gift and homewares trade fairs can be both exciting and overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the industry. Aside from ensuring you wear your most comfortable shoes, Liz Swanton gets tips from those who’ve ‘been there, done that’ to help maximise your trade fair experience.

There’s an old adage that suggests one should ‘shop till you drop’ and when it comes to a trade fair, this could be a reality, especially if you go unprepared.

The general consensus among our experienced trade fair visitors is that physical and mental exhaustion is all part of the experience, so retailers need to find a formula that allows them to handle the workload efficiently and economically—but still have some fun at the same time.

Planning is even more important if you’re traveling a long distance to the fair. For Kevin Schofield and his wife Jane, who own two Wild Card & Gift stores in WA, the precision-planning begins as soon as their GHA Home & Giving catalogue arrives in the mail. The distance they have to travel and the time involved—as well as keeping two teenage kids and two separate stores under control for that time—means the couple need to be completely organised before they leave home. "As soon as we receive the catalogue, we go through it and look for anything that might suit our two stores," says Schofield. "We check the layout of the fair, mark off our regular suppliers, plus anything new that takes our eye, and then we plan our ‘walk-through’ to be as efficient as we can.

"Our stores have completely different customer bases which makes it a bit trickier—plus it’s easy to be overwhelmed by how much is on offer and end up buying too much or the wrong thing. Being focused can help avoid that."

He says they time their arrival for Friday afternoon/evening and make sure they get plenty of rest before they head out on the first ‘mission’ on Saturday. The pair make notes as they go and place their orders either on the last day of the show, or even once they get home again.

"We make the one initial pass to check everything out and collect business cards," explains Schofield. "We attach each business card to a page of our notebook along with details of what interested us, then we review all that information that night and plan our next walk-through on the basis of that fine-tuning."

The process of forward planning also includes booking accommodation, so Schofield books for the following year while they’re at the current event. "One time I forgot and I booked by phone just before we left. We got to the hotel to find there had been a mix-up and we didn’t have a bed. We sorted it out—luckily—but we never made that mistake again. You need to know that you will be staying somewhere comfortable and convenient, because you will need your rest!"

He suggests the following golden rules for coping with a fair: don’t drink too much, eat well (not junk), get plenty of rest, wear comfortable shoes and buy with your customers in mind.

"You do have to pace yourself so you can do the job properly," he warns. "I’m not saying it can’t be fun, it’s great to network and to catch up with people you know, but you do have to keep in mind what you’re really there for, so you buy wisely and don’t blow the budget."