As I am prepar­ing for the Atlanta Gift Show at Amer­i­c­as­Mart in Jan­u­ary, I thought it might be fun to share a bit about how La Dolce Diva Bath & Body prod­ucts get to a retailer near you!

The Atlanta Gift Show is a Trade Show that is open to whole­sale buy­ers from retail­ers around the world. There are many such trade shows, but I am lucky enough to be liv­ing in a city that hosts one of the largest and most pop­u­lar. The other being the New York Gift Show.

It is held sev­eral times a year, but the 2 largest mar­kets are Jan­u­ary and July. They last for about 5 days. La Dolce Diva has been exhibit­ing at the Atlanta Gift Show for the last 3 years.

The point of the show is for qual­i­fied  buy­ers to see mul­ti­ple lines at the same time, new lines and ones they may not have seen yet. It is kind of like a shop­ping mall with whole­sale prices (whole­sale is what the retailer pays before they mark it up for their profit and sell to the consumer).

There are sec­tions that have booths that exhibit a sin­gle brand and also build­ings full of show­rooms that rep­re­sent mul­ti­ple lines. The booth sec­tions are bro­ken up into cat­e­gories. We are in the Body & Soul sec­tion which is mainly Bath & Body products.

The La Dolce Diva booth has been updated a bit since this pic­ture was taken. I will take some new pic­tures at the show.

As you can see, the point of the booth is get the aes­thetic of your brand across. You also have to remem­ber that most booths have to set-up and break-down (put away) easily.

Sev­eral of the larger com­pa­nies have far more elab­o­rate booths, but I will say proudly that we hold our own and get numer­ous com­pli­ments on our display.

It is easy to get caught up in dec­o­rat­ing your booth and dol­lars add up quickly, but you have to remem­ber the rea­son you are there, to rep­re­sent and sell you prod­uct the best you pos­si­bly can. Your booth has to be attrac­tive enough for buy­ers to want to come in to see your prod­uct and dis­played well for them to view your prod­uct in a log­i­cal man­ner. Most of the time, I, or one of my rep­re­sen­ta­tives, can greet and walk the buyer through the line. Some­times we are all busy and buy­ers take a look around, if they like what they see, they make a note to come back. Or, they take a cat­a­log and call you or sim­ply fax an order in.

A booth of about 10 x 10 feet with a drape, waste bas­ket, a table and riser, if requested, is approx­i­mately $3400. Yes, Three-Thousand-Four Hun­dred Dol­lars. That is before ship­ping the “booth”, air­fare, hotel and food for you and your team. That is just the show fee. Light­ing, elec­tric­ity, booth clean­ing and the like, are all extra charges. This is all in addi­tion to the accou­trement you add to make your booth look FAB-U-LOUS!

See what I mean about being lucky to live in Atlanta? I just drop my booth off at the ware­house for the pal­lets to be deliv­ered to the site. I drive to and from the show and sleep at home each night. But still, for a small busi­ness, it is quite an investment.

If you are a buyer, please visit us: La Dolce Diva, Inc. Bldg 3, Flr 4, Booth 2606, Body & Soul sec­tion. Look for the giant crowds!

If you will be exhibit­ing, we would love to meet you too, please drop by.

Wish us well in Jan­u­ary! We are all hop­ing for a big turnout.

If you’d like to know more about how to exhibit at a trade show, please visit our sis­ter site: Beauty & Your Biz: Project Trade Show 101