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Tradeshows still king in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- In a world filled with advanced communication technology, the old-fashioned method of face-to-face selling remains paramount. In Las Vegas, tradeshows, in various shapes and sizes, still attract 100,000 people and contribute $5 billion a year to the city. The attendees are all hoping to sell their concepts and products, and invest time, money and staff to get their product known. For John Guilbert of Impex Fitness the opportunity to have so many potential clients under one roof is crucial. "It's priceless -- you can't buy that anywhere else," he told CNN. At the International Builders' Show, Delta Faucet hired 5,000 square feet to showcase its wares. "We've probably got 40 percent of the faucets we manufacture here on display," Delta Faucet's John Wills said. "We've got at least five different vignette settings of our products here to actually show it in use so a builder can see what it would look like in his home." To wine and dine clients and journalists, Delta Faucet spent a small fortune – an expense Wills considers well spent. "What would it cost me in air fares and everything to take my management team and go and visit all the same customers all across the country... it probably only costs me a couple of hundred thousand dollars relative to what it would cost me to make all those same contacts." But among the big fish are the small fry, especially at one of the leading sports industry trade shows. While the likes of Reebok and The Foot Locker dominate the scene, smaller companies are trying to get a foot up the ladder. For Lois Marquart from Sport Frames, getting sales and word-of-mouth reviews is what she wanted. "I have made many sales already and there's people talking to me about wanting my little frames in a WalMart -- I could not ask for any better advertising than that." But for the customers the task is to weed out the right product, which can take hours traipsing across acres of display space. "It's very tiring mentally because you're trying to make decisions on what to buy and what not to buy, and a lot of it is future buying so you're trying to figure out what's going to be hot in six months and eight months," said John Maginley of Tennis Concepts.
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