What are the advantages of trade fairs?

These days, too many people can’t make the last decisions about the Chinese trade exhibitions. So, we decided to make an article and discuss the pros and cons of visiting Chinese trade fairs.

A trade fair is a place where manufacturers present their products to their potential future customers. Fairs are organized so that businessmen could explore trends, opportunities, and the market, in general. Fairs are also known as exhibitions, expos, or trade shows.

There are three types of exhibitions. For example, aimed only at manufacturers, only businessmen, or for both.

Advantages of fairs

Fairs offer manufacturers the meeting with potential customers. But the biggest advantage of the exhibition is that factories can present their products to the public. Likewise, people can talk with representatives of factories.

Exhibitions are specially organized so that people who visit feel the atmosphere of business. This creates a great opportunity for manufacturers and they try to find ‘whales’ in this sphere. Usually, representatives of factories set up contacts at least with "businessmen with money".

We know that factories have problems with wholesale customers. Trade shows help them to find not only wholesale clients but big businessmen, too. They do this not for the small group of people but present among the large auditory that is interested in business. There are several disadvantages of this phenomenon and about them, we will talk in the next part of the article.

Disadvantages of trade shows

We begin the list with the biggest con of fairs - the expensive cost. Usually, manufacturers buy stands and they are not cheap. But sometimes organizers may ask money even from visitors, from you and me. This can be a barrier if your business is young.

Unfortunately, this is not all, you should pay for your representative and spend on flights, hotels, food, and others. Of course, these are extra expenses that don’t depend on the result. Not everyone can choose an appropriate supplier even if he is surrounded by factory representatives.

As it was said in the beginning, fairs are full with competitors not only of your but manufacturers’ too. Because of that factory representatives do their best to attract your attention and do some negotiations. Unfortunately, competitions may cause lies or scams. If you don’t have experience in this kind of show, then you should be careful. It is impossible to check if the representative is talking about real prices and conditions or not. There have been thousands of situations when factories in the exhibitions offer one cost and after completely different numbers.

Another common issue is that it is difficult to find a long-term supplier. Usually, exhibition participants are beginners and they can’t produce in big quantities. After some orders possibly you will lose contact with the supplier. Some businessmen try to visit the factory, too. But this can’t guarantee that you won’t lose money or time after some orders.

Our customers complain about “businessmen” that represent themselves as manufacturers. After some relations, they find out that they were just ‘middlemen’. In China, it is quite common to work with foreigners as a representative of a factory. Because factories pay percentages depending on the number of orders to these people and as an addition ‘middlemen’ resell and put own prices, too.

Besides indirect cons, there are several barriers that can stop businessmen from traveling to China only to visit trade exhibitions. It is expenses that they should spend. Below, we have counted average costs of traveling to China from the EU.

• Flights: 3500 € - roundtrip
• Hotel: 70 € – per night
• Taxi: 100€ 
• Interpreter: 120€ per day

So, if we count the average cost of travelling to Beijing it would cost around 6000€ without a wage for your representative.

On the internet, you can find thousands of advice on how to avoid scammers or various problems. But the best solution is to find someone who has contacts with real manufacturers and has relations with them.

"Import secrets" consists of only experienced specialists in the sphere of importation. Our company helps businessmen to source and import various products. We have relations with thousands of real and checked manufacturers in China. Our company offers not only sourcing, importing but quality inspecting, optimizing the taxes and shipping costs, and other services.

If you use our services, all that expenses would be cancelled.

Contact us for further information.