Trade fairs are excellent venues for introducing your business and breaking into your target market.

After your business has been established, and you have produced available stock for your products, the next best move you can make is to market
them at a viable venue, where people will see and buy your products.

Before you join a trade fair, be sure you have completed computation of your selling price for retail sales and your price for wholesale. Determine the
mark-up you want to add to your product cost and the conservative % of mark-up usually is 25%.

To compute you Product Cost:

Fixed Cost
Raw Materials..........$ 5.00
Labor.................. 5.00
Overhead............... 2.00
------
Total Fixed Cost........$12.00
Indirect Cost
Packaging............... 1.00
Delivery Charges........ 1.00
Miscellaneous........... 0.50
------
Total Cost of Product....$14.50
Add: Mark-up 25%......... 2.18
------
Selling price for .......$16.68
Wholesale

Selling price for retail.$17.50


This is important because some buyers who go to trade fairs are volume
buyers, traders themselves who buy in bulk , or by the hundreds. They are what we call institution buyers as most are Purchasing or Marketing Managers of big department stores. If you get them as your regular customers, you are made.

A month before the trade fair, you will be asked by trade organizers for your company profile and product brochures. You may also be required to
print out price tags for your items indicating the materials used, the retail price, the price for wholesale,
time of production, and delivery date available (30 days, 60 days,etc.) and the delivery costs.

A week before the trade fair, all your goods must be packed and ready for transport to the fair site for the INGRESS, that is the scheduled time for trade fair participants to put their goods in the warehouse of the venue.
Often there will be documents to fill up and security gate passes to submit.
You will also be asked to attend a briefing of all participants to the fair
so that you will have an idea of the mechanics of the event. At the briefing, you will be issued ID's as
trade participant/exhibitor, and you
must always have your brochures, business cards, invoices and pertinent
papers ready for the first day of the
fair.

At INGRESS, you will be able to see your booth, and the other important thing you must learn is Visual Merchandising and Product Display. Before you get to the fair, a week or so before, you must have conceptualized how you will display your products. It is very important to show then in a very attractive and eye-catching way
so as to attract your buyers.

There are many resources and magazines you can get to have an idea
on effective booth set up and display.
Avoid neon backgrounds and stuffy items
that block or divert the focus from your product. If your products are crocheted blouses, it is best to have
a manikin to display the blouse on. If
your products are accessories or fancy
jewelry, have a rack for the necklaces and some dark velvet cloth as background to highlight the beauty of
your products.

On the day of trade fair openings, usually there are opening programs, and guests are there to cut the ribbons, and some from the media will be shooting videos of participants.
Remember to dress up in a business attire, bear in mind you are now a
BUSINESSMAN so you must dress like it.
Avoid blue jeans, sneakers, t-shirts,
baseball caps, and earrings on the nose or lips. Most organizers require a dress code and are strict with these,
so be a good businessman and cooperate.
Your first impression to buyers is your ticket to rewarding sales after.

The ladies should also consider well their attire at the trade fair.
Never wear outlandish garments that will "shout" your presence and make you look like a faded movie star. Be sure
to wear a trendy but professional get- up, and matching accessories that do not make you look like a Christmas tree.
Pearls and some silver are alright but not the "huge" ones. You are selling your product and your company, not yourself.

At the fair, always be courteous and amiable, patient with "difficult customers", and never argue or lose your cool with customers who are stingy, critical of your products, or
take an hour talking to you but really has no intention of buying.


Lastly,enjoy yourself as a business person, always and most of the time, you will have a lot of sales after the day's end, and you will like counting all that cash.


For the those who did not buy your products, don't feel so bad about it, it is their loss, not yours.