From Product Showcase to Retail Proposition: A Trade Show Strategy for Emerging Giftware Brands

For an emerging giftware brand, booking a first major trade show can feel like a significant moment. Months go into developing the range, refining packaging, creating the stand and making sure everything is ready for the doors to open.

It is also very easy for the show itself to become the strategy.

I'd look at it as one part of a much wider marketing and sales campaign. The commercial work starts before anybody walks onto the stand and, in most cases, carries on for months afterwards.

That matters particularly for newer brands because retail buyers aren't simply deciding whether they like a product. They're making a judgement about the business behind it.

Can I sell this? Is the margin right? How much do I need to order? What happens if something takes off? Will stock arrive when they say it will? Is this supplier going to be straightforward to deal with?

The product gets you into the conversation. Everything around it helps the buyer decide how seriously to take the opportunity.

Ahead of the autumn trade show season, that's where I'd start.

Give the show a commercial job

Before getting into stand design, catalogues or social media, work out what the business actually needs the show to achieve.

"Generate leads" is too vague to be particularly useful.

A newer business may want its first 50 independent stockists. Another may already have good independent distribution and be targeting garden centres, visitor attractions or larger retail groups. A brand moving into a new category may primarily want conversations with existing customers. Another could be looking for distributors or overseas partners.

The marketing plan should look different in each case.

If there are ten national accounts you really want to meet, I wouldn't leave those conversations to chance and hope the right buyers happen to walk past the stand.

If independents are the priority, the opening order, merchandising support, price architecture and ease of replenishment may matter much more.

And if you're testing a new category, ten very good buyer conversations might tell you more about pricing, packaging and ranging than a busy stand ever will.

Define the commercial objective first. It becomes much easier to decide where to spend the time and budget once you know what you are trying to change.

Otherwise, you can have an exhausting few days, collect a lot of names and still struggle to answer a fairly basic question afterwards: was it worth it?

Buyers are assessing much more than the product

Giftware is a visual industry. Design matters and the product has to make somebody stop in the first place. But think about what happens next.

An independent retailer looking at a new collection may love it immediately, while also trying to work out where it would sit in their shop, who would buy it, how much space it needs and how it compares with the products around it.

They'll be thinking about margins. Opening order value. Which lines are likely to lead the collection. Whether the range hangs together well enough to justify giving it meaningful space.

Then come the practical questions about delivery, case quantities, stock availability, payment, damages and reordering.

A larger retailer may move fairly quickly onto capacity, compliance, logistics, exclusivity and whether the supplier could handle a much bigger opportunity.

That's why I'd be wary of thinking about "the retail buyer" as a single audience.

An independent gift shop and a national department store may both like exactly the same product. They won't necessarily be evaluating the supplier in the same way.

Work out which buyers matter most and understand what a good proposition looks like to them.

More products don't automatically make the range stronger

There is an understandable temptation when launching at a show to demonstrate everything the business can do.

Maybe there are plans for mugs, stationery, plush, jewellery, fragrance, accessories and future licensing. It can feel as though displaying more makes the company look more substantial.

Sometimes it just makes the buyer's job harder.

They are walking a large show, probably seeing hundreds of brands and making quick decisions about where to spend their time.

If somebody needs a five-minute explanation before they understand what the brand is really about, I'd question whether everything needs to be on the stand.

A smaller collection can often tell a much stronger story if the hero products are obvious, the pricing makes sense and the range looks good together.

Which products should a retailer start with? What might they put alongside them? Where do the different price points sit? What is likely to drive the repeat purchase?

Those questions are more commercially useful than trying to prove how many different things the business could manufacture.

You can always talk about what comes next. You don't need to display the next three years of the product roadmap.

A good product can still look risky to a buyer

Before a first show, I'd get somebody outside the business to try to place a wholesale order.

Don't explain anything to them first. See whether they can understand the wholesale price, RRP, minimum opening order, case quantities and carriage arrangements. Can they find EAN or barcode information? Do they know what happens if they need more stock? Is it obvious who they contact if something arrives damaged? If they need photography for their own website or social media, can they get it easily?

None of that is particularly exciting compared with stand design, but it has a huge influence on how established the business feels.

The trade terms document should answer the questions that come up repeatedly. A wholesale price list should be easy to use without somebody standing next to it translating.

It is also worth being precise with the terminology. Minimum opening order, product MOQ and case or carton quantity are not necessarily the same thing. New wholesale businesses sometimes blur them together and create confusion that doesn't need to be there.

Buyers expect some risk when trying a new supplier. There is no reason to add to it with avoidable uncertainty.

Your website is part of the stand, whether you planned it that way or not

Think about what happens after somebody has met you. There is a good chance they will Google the company, look at the website, find the Instagram account, check LinkedIn or send the details to somebody else in the buying team. All of those things become part of the same impression.

I wouldn't tell a successful consumer brand to turn its whole website into a trade website for exhibition season. I would make sure the wholesale route is very difficult to miss.

A buyer should be able to establish quickly that you work with retailers, understand the main collections and know what they need to do next.

A proper trade section can carry much of that information without interfering with the consumer experience: catalogues, ordering information, contacts, stockist enquiries, product assets and examples of how the range can work in store.

I'd look closely at lead capture too.

There is a big difference between a QR code that opens a catalogue and one that lets somebody request the catalogue while telling you which business they represent and what they are interested in.

One gives you a download. The other gives the sales team something to work with.

Don't rely on the right buyers finding you by accident

Trade shows bring large numbers of relevant people into the same place. That is a major part of their value.

It still doesn't guarantee that the buyer you most want to meet will come down your aisle, notice the stand and have enough time to stop.

Start with what you already know.

Which existing retailers should you see? Which former customers might be worth reactivating? Who has enquired previously but never ordered?

Then look at the accounts you don't have.

If there are 50 retailers you would genuinely love to stock the range, identify them before the show. Find out who buys the category and start giving them reasons to recognise the name.

That might happen through email, LinkedIn, direct sales outreach, PR or the company's own content.

I wouldn't make "Come and see us on stand B42" the main message.

Why should they?

Perhaps you've launched a collection that works particularly well for visitor attractions. Maybe an existing range has been performing strongly with independents. There could be a licensing story, an interesting price point, some useful sales evidence or a clear reason why the range fits what retailers are seeing from consumers.

Lead with that.

The stand number becomes useful once you've given somebody a reason to find it.

This also requires marketing and sales to talk to each other. Marketing should know which accounts matter commercially. The sales team should know what marketing is doing to warm those accounts up. PR should reinforce the same story rather than heading off in another direction because somebody needs "a press release for the show".

"We're exhibiting" isn't much of a PR story

Hundreds of businesses will be exhibiting at the major autumn shows. Simply announcing that you're one of them probably isn't going to generate much interest outside your existing audience.

The better question is why the industry should care about what you're bringing. There may be a genuine product story. There could also be something interesting about the category, consumer behaviour, licensing, sustainability, merchandising or the way you are supporting retailers.

Perhaps the founder has unusual experience in the market. Maybe sales data is showing something interesting. Perhaps the business has spotted an opportunity that other suppliers haven't addressed particularly well.

That gives trade media something to work with. It also gives the wider marketing campaign more substance.

A buyer might read about the business in a trade title, see something from the founder on LinkedIn a week later, receive an email before the show and then walk past the stand.

They may not consciously connect every interaction, but the brand no longer feels completely unfamiliar when the conversation starts.

That is much more useful than getting a piece of coverage simply to say you got one.

The stand has to work commercially, not just photograph well

A beautiful stand is obviously a good thing, but I wouldn't judge it mainly by how it looks in the post-show Instagram carousel.

Stand back a few metres before the exhibition and see what you understand.

What sort of business is this? What category are they in? Who is the product for? Where does the pricing appear to sit? What draws your eye first? Can you imagine the collection in a shop?

Then walk closer and think about the buying process.

One of the easiest ways to make a stand harder to understand is to put absolutely everything on it.

I'd also resist trying too hard to make a young business appear much bigger than it really is.

Founder-led brands can be brilliant. Buyers often like meeting the people who created the product and understanding where the idea came from.

What is less reassuring is a business that appears to rely on the founder personally handling every order, answering every email and resolving every problem.

Small and personal is not the same as unprepared.

Don't tell the whole founder story before you know who you're talking to

Founder stories absolutely have a place in giftware. For some brands they are a major part of why the product is interesting.

But if a buyer has just walked onto the stand, I'd find out something about them before launching into the company history.

What sort of shop do they have? Which categories work for them? What price points are they looking at? Are they at the show with something specific in mind?

You may have 40 products available, but perhaps only eight are really relevant to that retailer. Show them those. Then talk about margin, opening orders, stock, delivery and the support available to them.

The story behind the brand will usually land better once the buyer can see why the products might make sense for their own customer.

Don't come home with a pile of names and call it a lead list

Most exhibitors will collect contacts during the show. The useful bit is remembering why you have them.

Somebody who picked up a catalogue and said the products looked nice isn't the same sales opportunity as the buyer who spent 20 minutes discussing a range, asked for pricing and wants another conversation next week.

If both contacts simply end up in a spreadsheet labelled "Autumn Fair leads", you've immediately lost a lot of useful information.

You don't need an enormously complicated lead-scoring system.

Who were they? What sort of retailer? What did they look at? How interested did they appear? Is there a specific opportunity? What did you agree would happen next?

That final point is particularly important.

"Follow up after the show" isn't much of a next step.

"Send Sarah the Christmas range and speak next Thursday about a possible 12-store trial" is.

Capture that while the conversation is still fresh. Three days later, after hundreds of conversations, everybody's memory becomes considerably less reliable.

A lot of exhibition value disappears in the following fortnight

Everyone works incredibly hard before a trade show. Then there are several intense days at the event itself, followed by getting home to the emails and work that piled up while you were away.

It isn't difficult to see why follow-up slips so I'd prepare as much of it as possible beforehand.

The most important opportunities will probably need personal contact quickly. Somebody else may have asked for samples. Another buyer might only need details on one range rather than receiving every catalogue the company has ever produced.

Not every lead should get the same follow-up just because you met them at the same show.

This is where even fairly basic CRM discipline helps. You need to know who the person is, what they were interested in and what happened next.

Otherwise a trade show can generate hundreds of contacts that gradually turn into a very expensive mailing list.

The ROI probably won't be clear on the final day

Footfall tells you something. Social engagement during the show is useful to see. Positive comments about the products are encouraging. None of them tells you whether the investment worked commercially.

Go back to what you wanted the show to achieve. Did you meet the accounts that mattered? How many genuine opportunities did you create? What was ordered at the show? What entered the pipeline afterwards? Which conversations progressed and which disappeared?

Then keep looking.

Some of the most valuable buyer conversations won't turn into an order immediately. Samples may need to be sent, internal buying meetings happen later and bigger opportunities can take months to develop.

I'd review the commercial impact after 30 days and again around 90 days. Depending on the kind of accounts you're targeting, six months may tell you considerably more.

Reorders matter too.

A first order is good. A retailer that is still ordering regularly several years later tells you far more about the quality of customer the show generated.

Where I'd focus before the next show

There are plenty of things you can add to a trade show marketing plan. I'd get the fundamentals right first.

Be clear about what you want to change

Decide which commercial gap the show is there to address.

It might be distribution, a particular type of retailer, a new territory, a category launch or a relatively small number of important accounts.

That decision should influence almost everything else.

Look at the range like a buyer

Make the important products obvious.

Check that the pricing makes sense, the collections merchandise well together and the opening order feels achievable for the type of retailer you want.

You don't need to show every possibility. You need to make it easy for somebody to see how they could start buying from you.

Try to buy from yourself

Go through the website, catalogue, price list, terms and ordering process without filling in the gaps from your own knowledge.

Better still, ask somebody else to do it.

If they repeatedly need to ask what something means or what happens next, fix it.

Know who you want to meet

Some conversations are worth considerably more than others.

Identify the existing customers, prospects and target accounts you most want to see and start the marketing before the show opens.

Decide what happens on the Monday afterwards

Don't wait until everybody gets back to work to decide how leads will be followed up.

Agree what information needs to be captured, who owns the different types of opportunity and how quickly the important conversations should continue.

The stand isn't the strategy

Trade shows remain one of the few places where giftware businesses can put products directly in front of large numbers of buyers and have conversations that would be much harder to create elsewhere.

That is what makes them valuable.

It is also why I'd think very carefully before treating them as a few days of exhibition activity.

For a newer brand, the aim shouldn't be to look as large as possible. It should be to make the decision to buy feel easier.

That means understanding the retailer, presenting the right range, having the commercial basics properly sorted and creating enough familiarity before the show that the first conversation doesn't always start from zero.

Then the follow-up has to do its job.

The stand matters, of course. So do the products.

But the eventual order is influenced by everything around them: the website the buyer checks afterwards, the conversation they had with the founder, the terms they take back to the buying team, the email they receive the following week and what happens when they need more stock.

That's the wider opportunity I think emerging giftware businesses should be looking at when they plan for trade show season.

Planning for trade show season?

We work with giftware and wholesale businesses on the marketing around commercial growth, including positioning, buyer targeting, PR, digital activity, lead generation and closer alignment between marketing and sales.

If you're investing in trade shows and want to look at how the activity around them could work harder commercially, get in touch with Marketing 101.