The pain points of enterprises in participating in exhibitions are an open option, and the collected situations are diverse. We classified and sorted the samples collected in the survey and selected the 8 most representative ones. We have a very intuitive understanding of the specific pain points faced by exhibitors.
Pain point 1: The exhibition effect is not ideal;
Pain point 2: The exhibition process is complicated;
Pain point 3: Homogeneous competition is large;
Pain point 4: The international situation is not good;
Pain point 5: Unstable exchange rates in emerging markets;
Pain point 6: Lack of understanding of the target market;
Pain point 7: Cannot get a good position;
Pain point 8: High exhibition costs.
From the specific situation, some are subjective factors of enterprises, such as insufficient preparation. A company participating in the survey said that the exhibition language was not fluent because it went to the Portuguese-speaking region to participate in the exhibition without employees or translators who could speak the local language, which would inevitably affect the exhibition effect. Other companies said that the exhibition effect was not ideal because they did not choose the “right” exhibition. Especially for new exhibitors, it is not an easy task to choose the right exhibition in order to find as many potential customers as possible. Before participating in the exhibition, enterprises did not understand the key information such as the background of the exhibition, the organizer, and the scope of exhibits, and participated in the exhibition blindly. Some companies said that the conversion rate was not obvious, and some of them were because the sales staff did not conduct effective post-exhibition follow-up work.
In addition, there are some non-subjective factors. For example, a company with more than 500 people said that the exhibition process was too complicated. If the exhibition process was simplified, it would help improve the efficiency of the exhibition. Other companies said that some exhibition organizers were not strong enough, did not effectively promote the exhibition, and the on-site audience was not professional enough, resulting in very few effective customers, affecting the exhibition effect. Some companies also said that there were too many similar products and chaotic price competition, especially in the fields of hardware and building materials.
Some companies also said that the booths at traditional large-scale European and American trade shows were in short supply, and they often could not get booths or good positions; emerging markets were not stable enough, and policies and exchange rates often fluctuated. These all affected the exhibition effect of the company. The influence of Chinese companies at international trade shows is remarkable, but we cannot deny that there is still a lot of room for improvement in terms of marketing and brand building when companies participate in overseas exhibitions.