Exhibiting at the shows…worth it?

A lot of conversation is going on in offices around the country right now as vendors and sales agencies debate the value of having taken booths at the various gift shows. In normal years, the conversation would include sales numbers that justify the expense; this year, however, the paper written during the shows won’t tell the entire story.

I’ve been on this soapbox before, but it bears repeating. Last summer’s (wildly exaggerated) rumors about low show attendance sprang from showrooms whose submitted order levels were down. They were inaccurately defining the number of retailers who attended by the number of orders written, with no regard for the buyers who looked…didn’t write…but faxed in orders from home later on. Yes, attendance was down, but not nearly as much as you thought.

Vendors and reps, take a lesson from retailers: It’s all about the eyeballs. Here’s an example:

Let’s say that in a normal day, 100 customers walk into a store, and of those 100 people, 45 purchase something. The retailer has a 45% conversion rate.

Or does he?

The next day, five of those who didn’t purchase the day before return, and this time, they buy something A week later, five more come in and buy. Valentine’s Day rolls around, and 15 of the original group returns to pick up gifts for their loved ones. Months later, one customer returns with a 20-piece order for corporate gifts.

Bottom line? The conversion rate was 71%…or higher, depending on how many more of the original 100 returned at some point, or better yet, passed the word along to others who may have popped in to pick up something special.

The point is that you have no way to track how many orders on your fax machine were actually spawned by a show visit. It used to be that you could pretty much guess the plethora of paper coming in within 30 days of a show was connected, but given how carefully retailers are monitoring cash flow, then ordering as funds become available, that window of time stretches to upward of 90 days or longer.

Now is not the time to reduce your presence with buyers. They’re looking for companies stable, willing, and able to play their role in the supply chain. If you skip a show, odds are the absence will be attributed to your inability to cover costs, which is only a heartbeat away from the perception you’re in financial straights…and no buyer wants to risk their dollars on a company who’s on shaky ground.

If you aren’t there to show product, buyers will find a booth that is…and they’ll place their orders there. You’ll lose your shelf space to someone who just might do a good enough job to still fill that space when the market turns around. Which it will.

You keep telling retailers not to cut back so far that their customers look elsewhere. Time to take your own advice.