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Home Sourcing Planet Success at National Incentive Show
Sourcing Planet successfully exhibited at the recent National Incentive Show in partnership with a group of eleven prominent ‘Trade Exclusive’ suppliers. The simple principle was to generate sales leads for distributors.
Each stand was clearly branded as ‘Sourcing Planet’, with Trade Exclusive Suppliers demonstrating key products from their ranges, with no reference to the supplier companies themselves. Strict ‘exhibitor rules’ were also agreed, (copy available on request), whereby no business cards were given out by suppliers & all catalogues handed out clearly stated that the products were available from ‘your usual promotional merchandise distributor’.
The Sourcing Planet Pavilion covered one of the largest floor areas at the show & featured eleven Exclusively Trade Supplier companies. Sourcing Planet & every “Trade Exclusive“ supplier who exhibited are 100% committed in everything they do to ‘Supporting & growing the market through the ‘distributor channel’. To exhibit, each Trade Exclusive supplier had to have a strict policy in not dealing directly with end users.
At the show, visitors were asked if they had a preferred distributor they used. When any ‘preferred distributor’ was identified, these enquiries were sent exclusively to those distributor companies by the ‘Sourcing Planet Team’, whether the distributor was a Sourcing Planet customer or not. 17 sales leads were sent in this way. Interestingly, one of sales leads generated was worth £15,000+, & was for a distributor who was also exhibiting, but didn’t actually see their customer at the show.
Sourcing Planet generated 221 specific quality sales leads, every one of which went straight to distributors. In addition, several hundred plain catalogues & samples were also given away to visitors at the show, & Sourcing Planet report that exhibiting suppliers are already receiving sales enquiries through ‘Non Sourcing Planet distributors’, as a result of visitors returning to their offices & placing enquiries with their local distributor.
Attending 3 day exhibitions is of course an expensive activity in terms of both cost & time, but each ‘Trade Exclusive Supplier’ did so at considerable expense, to anonymously create sales leads for distributors under the ‘Sourcing Planet’ banner. One observer commented, “BMW exhibit their car ranges at motor shows across the world, yet to buy one you must visit one of their dealers. This concept is exactly the same.”
This of course, is not the first time that suppliers have directly presented their products to end users. Many high profile distributors now run ‘In House’ exhibitions, where they invite suppliers to present their product ranges directly to the distributors own invited customers. Following Sourcing Planet’s similar success at the Promotional Marketing Exhibition, this is the second time that the concept has been taken to a national scale for the national benefit of distributors.
The UK economy is in uncertain times & everyone needs to find ways to maintain & grow their businesses. ‘Trade Exclusive suppliers’ are totally dependent on distributors for orders. Partnering with Sourcing Planet has enabled them to create enquiries for their own products, all of which were then passed directly to distributors, thus creating a classic ‘win-win’ situation. On a global level this initiative is also helping to grow the exposure & profile of promotional merchandise in contrast to other marketing options.
Alistair Mylchreest, CEO, Sourcing Planet said: “Everything we do is designed to support & grow the distributor channel. The National Incentive Show enabled us to generate specific sales leads for our distributor customers. Also, many plain brochures & samples were given away to visitors by our ‘Trade Exclusive supplier’ partners, & this will result in enquiries for many distributors throughout the country, without them even realising it!, so it is not only the Sourcing Planet distributors that will be benefiting. This concept has to be the ultimate ‘win-win’ situation for all, & on a global level we are all proud to be collectively growing the promotional market for everyone.”