Recording an experience of accompanying a buyer to visit the Canton Fair! Who did he place the order with in the end?

Whether it is an old friend or a new customer, as long as they propose to come to China to participate in the industry exhibition, it means that we will face a new round of bidding, and there is even the danger of being poached by our peers. Even if we finally get the order, we will most likely have to deal with a wave of price wars.

The following is my experience of accompanying customers to visit the exhibition during the Canton Fair last year. I sincerely discuss with you how to better deal with the problem of “having to” receive customers to visit the exhibition.

This matter started in January last year. At that time, we signed up for the Kazakhstan exhibition on April 20th. Just after paying the deposit, we received an invitation from a large supplier in February. The head of their group led a team to visit the city of our Russian agent and do a wave of ground promotion together. It was tentatively scheduled between April 15th and 20th, and their factory would cover all the expenses.

I was struggling with which one to take care of first! At the end of February, an old customer in Georgia informed me that they planned to attend the Canton Fair from April 15th to 19th, and asked us to help receive them. Because it was their first time in China and they didn’t know English yet.

At the same time, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Guangzhou all needed me. Where should I appear? I wish I were an earthworm…

After weighing it over and over again, considering that the Georgian guest is an old customer after all, we have known each other for so many years, but we have only been video chatting and have never met offline, I finally made up my mind to accompany him to the exhibition.

This is actually a very helpless choice. What I think is that whether I go to the Kazakhstan exhibition or go to Russia for ground promotion, I will face unfamiliar customer groups, and whether it will succeed or not is unknown. However, these three people from Georgia are indeed old customers for many years. If I don’t accompany them, maybe I will become someone else’s new customer.

Because the Georgian guests came to China for the first time, as soon as they entered the exhibition hall, they were new to everything. They wanted to ask this and that. The participating companies also thought that the presence of white-skinned foreigners was an opportunity. They didn’t seem to believe my suggestions and started to quote without considering the minimum order quantity.

The more I wanted to help, the less they wanted to listen, and they wrote the price directly on the brochure.

When the customer heard their offer, he was very excited and said to me along the way: “Vasya, I like this company’s offer and products. Please write it down. I want to buy it at this price. Take a photo. Yes, these products, I want this quality…”

At that time, they must have felt that this trip was worth it and they should have come earlier. This time, they must have successfully lowered the price!

But in fact, I know that if we visit the exhibition in this way, we will wear out our heels and talk thin, but we will only get a mess of business cards and brochures. Even if we visit for 10 days, we will not get any results.

So I decided to change my thinking and change the way customers visit the exhibition, where they want to see everything, and take back the initiative.

I began to use my experience advantage and started with the direction they were more interested in – more than 90% of foreigners almost want to find factories to cooperate with, not trading companies. So I told them which ones are obviously trading companies at a glance, and told them how to judge.

I saved them time and energy, and they were happy to do it.

Then I told them how to quickly identify which factories are big factories. Cooperating with big factories not only guarantees quality, but also has after-sales advantages. I guided them to look at the products, and through product comparison, they found out the advantages and disadvantages of the products of big factories and small factories. As long as they sat down, they would immediately talk to the factory according to their purchasing habits, and tell the factory their requirements in detail. They were responsible for supplementing the requirements that I didn’t mention.

In this way, the guests saved the time of repeating what they said one by one, and I became a mouthpiece. In a word, we began to become a family. I returned to the role of domestic purchasing agent, and we talked about factories together and made decisions together.

Every time I talked to a company, I made detailed records, including the products, models, contacts, prices, and delivery dates. Of course, I tried to avoid talking about the order quantity (this place is a bit cunning). The sales really asked, and I reported their purchase volume in the best year. The customer also felt that I was not lying. They also like to exaggerate the data and flatter themselves.

After the exhibition, the customer went back and did not contact me for two weeks.

I guessed that they must be communicating closely with the factories that were interested before. Don’t worry, since I guided most of the factories to talk to them anyway. Based on my judgment of customers, they will definitely come back to me.

Sure enough, they came back in the third week and said, “Vasya, many factories in China are dishonest! The prices they quoted at the exhibition are not counted. We will ask them again after we go back. They will either increase the price or increase the minimum order quantity…”

I thought to myself, brother, don’t you know your purchase volume? There are so many trivial brand OEM requirements, and the quantity is not large. Many factories must not like to serve.

Georgia has a population of three million. How big a market can it have? These large factories participating in the exhibition are all going for big customers. After they go back, they calm down and do a background check based on the business card information. They basically have a judgment of your level. How can they have time to serve these small customers? Of course, if they can serve such small customers, I will accept it.

But when they came to me, I still had to help them solve the problem. We contacted some factories he selected at the exhibition and negotiated with them one by one. We negotiated with those that could be negotiated, and showed them the real negotiation process for those that could not be negotiated. We discussed and decided all the processes with them, which was a big conspiracy.

Finally, the customer probably had enough of the trouble, and finally two months after returning home, the orders started to return to normal.

Of course, a cabinet was also lost. It was a small factory in China. The price was surprisingly low. The customer told me that as long as I could do the same as them, they would let me do it. But our purchasing team worked hard for half a month and harassed almost all the factories in China that made this product, but we couldn’t find a suitable price. Finally, they made a deal directly.

Unexpectedly, this small factory was afraid that the customer would change his mind, and asked the customer to pay on the same day on the grounds of adjusting the price of raw materials, otherwise the price would increase the next day. The customer had no choice but to ask me for help again, asking me to help advance some advance payment for insurance. I was speechless. They took my order, and I had to help advance the money. I deserved this good guy card.

When the customer followed up with this factory himself, he either couldn’t find anyone today or changed the delivery date tomorrow. The order promised to be delivered in 20 days was delivered in two months. The customer was very worried, so we went to help inspect the goods.

After receiving the goods, the customer announced that he would give them all to me in the future. Although this kind of order saved a little money, it was too annoying.

For me, I actually understand that once conditions permit, customers will definitely not give up the opportunity to find cheaper suppliers, but if suppliers across the country start a price war, there will be no winner.

The way for our foreign trade company to survive is that when we provide more detailed services and think about everything before customers, we try to expand procurement channels and give them more profit margins on the basis of ensuring quality. Customers also understand the various risks they will face after replacing us. Through these blessings, customers will naturally become more and more dependent on us. I think this is the core value of our existence!