Attending Chinese trade fairs is essential for keeping a good relationship with existing suppliers or building up new ones.
The Chinese mentality favors frequent personal contacts with their overseas trading partners and meetings at trade fairs are one of them. Therefore you are well advised to prepare yourself in the best possible way for your meetings with Chinese manufacturers, because poor preparations reflect negatively on the way your company’s business is conducted.
We suggest that you make arrangements with your key suppliers to have additional meetings outside the busy and noisy trade fair environment. If you have enough time, it would be perfect to go to the suppliers’ factory to have the meeting there or meet them at your hotel.
Chinese suppliers are very service orientated and usually do not mind if the meeting lasts well into the night as long as it could create extra business opportunities for them. They always bear in mind that you have come a long way to meet them.
… copyright infringements are a common place in China …
The extra meetings outside the trade fair ground will also give the suppliers a better opportunity to provide you with details of their latest developments. Since copyright infringements are common place in China, manufacturers usually do not want to display their latest models at their trade fair booth. Quite lot trade fair visitors are not aware of this and expect to see all the latest developments on display, which unfortunately is not the case.
We suggest visiting at least following essential trade fairs on regular basis:
- Canton [Guangzhou] Spring Fair in April
- Canton [Guangzhou] Autumn Fair in October
- Hong Kong SAR trade fairs of which the most important are:
a) Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair in January
b) Hong Kong Electronics Fair in April + October
c) China Sourcing Fair Gift & Home Products in April
d) Hong Kong Houseware Fair in April
e) Hong Kong Gifts & Premium Fair in April
The trade fairs in Hong Kong take place at 2 different venues which can be easily accessed from the main hotel areas.
Our eBook will give you an easy to follow guideline, based on more than two decades working experience in China, how to attend Chinese trade fairs more effectively and most importantly how to reduce your cost. It will also inform you about the exact dates and other additional trade fairs in China and Hong Kong, which may be of interest to you and which cannot be shown in this preview.
