Hi All,
In my opinion it was one of the best things we could've done in terms of striking up potential partners and most definately not a waste of time. The tradeshow was mainly directed at wholesalers/distributors but we had alot of success.
The show runs upto wednesday but after a day and a half we had made more than enough contact with suppliers (roughly 150ppl) to cover the 20 or so sites left to be populated in time for the launch.
Not everyone was so forthcoming to the idea of dropshipping, which was made even harder when micky mouse outfits were getting there before us and they weren't taken seriously - (with no company literature, brochure etc.)
However this did not deter me - we battled on and managed to get a number of people who said "no" initialy into, "we're definately interested".
Others were obviously clued up on the whole concept and gave us everything we needed in order to make it happen - so all in all I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in gaining valuable contacts in a short period of time or simply the latest products, crazes and other retail related stuff.
To answer your question Pete - I found out about it initially in the Trader magazine; I visited the website and ordered my free tickets straight away - easy as that. The site also contains details of similar shows to be held at the NEC.
If anyone has any questions on the above matter, I will be more than happy to answer them,
All the best
Jamie
