What we learned from the Atlanta Gift fair

Click & Grow exhibited at the Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishing Market which took place from July 13 to July 17. The fair was focused on gifts, furniture and home textiles and was located in the AmericasMart trade center which is the largest permanent trade center in the world.

The magnitude of the fair was obvious from the beginning as the AmericasMart trade center consists of 4 buildings covering approximately 7 million square feet. Fortunately, our exhibition stood out and therefore we were able to meet our goal of finding new contacts.

Overall, we generated about 50 serious contacts including gift shops, distributors and smaller retail chains. Marek and Olaf from our sales team now have a lot of work on their hands to follow up.

Another positive was the learning aspect we encountered. This was the first fair we attended independently and it was definitely a learning experience. As we’re not an envious bunch, we’ll share the 3 most important aspects we learned with you:

1. Location is everything. It makes a huge difference whether your booth is located near the entrance area or at the back-end of the floor. The bigger the trade fair, the larger amount of traffic is situated around the entrance areas of the floors. If your booth is located at the back-end of the floor, then unfortunately nobody will reach you and you won’t be able to generate enough quality contacts. Front-end booths cost a lot more, but the case could be made that their return-on-investment is higher.

2. Trade fairs are great for generating valuable business contacts. Trade fairs are efficient on generating valuable contacts because they facilitate face to face meetings between buyers and sellers. During a face to face contact you have the ability to showcase your product in real form – an aspect that can’t be achieved by an e-mail or a phone call.

3. Differentiate. Although location is key, another important aspect is to stand out from the other exhibitions. If you grab the visitors’ attention and appear interesting, you’re more likely to attract visitors. Our exhibition looked great, was next to candles and alcohol free champagne - so naturally we rocked!

Cheers!