A large Chinese trade fair is an overwhelming density of supply: thousands of stands, most of them showing products that are variations on each other, staffed by people whose job that week is to collect contacts. It is the fastest way in the world to map a product category. It is also a setting where everyone looks equally capable, which is precisely the information you need and cannot get there.
What to actually do there
- Map the category: price levels, what is standard, what is differentiating, which features everyone has and which nobody offers.
- Collect samples and photographs. Physical objects are what you will actually use when you get home.
- Identify whether a stand is a manufacturer or a trading company, with the question that always separates them: which parts do you make yourself?
- Note the two or three people who answered a technical question properly. They are the entire output of the trip.
What not to do there
- Do not place an order. Nothing about a fair setting lets you assess a factory, and the pressure to commit on the stand is structural.
- Do not treat the quoted price as real. Fair prices are opening positions given without knowing your specification or volume.
- Do not collect two hundred cards. Twenty conversations you can remember beat two hundred you cannot.
Combine it with something else
The highest-value version of this trip is a fair plus factory visits in the surrounding region, arranged in advance for the days after. You use the fair to discover and the visits to decide, in one journey. Going to the fair alone means coming back with a list and starting the real work from Europe, which costs another trip later.
Fair dates, editions and registration requirements change from year to year. Confirm the current schedule and entry conditions with the organiser before booking anything.