Retailing at trade exhibitions

Many exhibitors believe that exhibiting is retailing, where they book a shop (stand) at a specialised shopping centre (trade exhibition), then they dress the shop (stand building and display) then sit there waiting for buyers to stop by. They believe that the job of the exhibition organiser is to rent shops (stands), whereas the real job of the organiser is to create business opportunities.

Irrespective of the size and sophistication of the stand, you can tell if an exhibitor is retailing if:

• the stand has no staff or visitors
  
• the stand staff are standing around chatting to each other, reading or eating
  
• the stand is full of people intent only on collecting the give-aways and freebies
  
• the stand staff are poorly trained, lack product knowledge or worse, are students
  
• they are selling products on the stand

Retailing on an exhibition stand aims at selling one item to a 1000 people. Marketing on an exhibition stand aims at selling 1000 items to 1000 buyers.

Retailing exhibitors exhibit for the wrong reasons (suppose we'd better be there as all my competitors are exhibiting), leave it till the last minute to plan their stand, then don't select, train and motivate the right stand staff. Once the show is over, they get back to their ‘real job', which is why over 80% of trade show leads are never followed up.

Exhibitions are the most direct marketing media – as you are face-to-face with your clients and prospects. If exhibitors want to improve their performance on trade exhibitions, they should stop retailing and start marketing.