The ASD Trade Show: Day 1

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I just got back from a quick trip to Las Vegas. No, it wasn’t for some gambling fun; it was to attend the annual ASD Trade Show, where our Communications Manager Robert Green was scheduled to give a presentation on international product sourcing.

Robert thought it was a good idea for me to tag along so I could see what e-commerce sellers like myself go through when they try to find products “the ol’ fashioned way”—meaning when they visit hundreds of vendors’ booths to find and inspect the wares they want to offer in their stores or eBay listings.

If you’ve never been to one of these massive sourcing events, it can be a bit overwhelming. I didn’t know what to expect. Just reading about it beforehand wasn’t enough to prepare me for the vast array of basically anything and everything you could think of or want to buy.

When we arrived on Monday, Robert and I walked from our hotel to the Sands Expo & Convention Center, where the majority of the trade show was taking place. One floor had jewelry and apparel; the other featured toys and housewares. That sounded pretty simple to navigate—everything all sectioned up in the proper categories. But once we started walking aisle upon aisle of goods, it became apparent we were in over our heads.

Just trying to make our way through the housewares vendors took nearly two hours, and we didn’t even know what we were looking for. I spent most of that time chatting with vendors and asking them questions about their businesses. Every vendor we spoke to was very friendly and willing to share as much as they could about their products. That in itself was very refreshing.

An added bonus for me was finding a vendor, Cohasset Gift & Garden, whose specialty is hand-painted bamboo wind chimes from Bali, something that I had actually researched before heading to the show. The two brothers who owned the business were super nice and even let me buy one of their display products that I had taken a shining to. Most vendors weren’t willing to sell their items. They wanted to wait until the end of the tradeshow to do it—if at all—but these nice men made me a great deal! I do wish, though, that I had thought about the fact that I’d be lugging my heavy purchase around with me for the rest of the day. Lesson learned, but totally worth it!

By the end of our vendor-browsing day my dogs were barking, my head was spinning and we hadn’t even checked out one-fifth of the vendors at the trade show. Yet, despite my exhaustion, I was happy to be there. This might be the only chance I would get in the near future to attend one of these shows on such a grand scale, and I wanted to see as much as possible in the short time we had.

What happened on day two? I’ll tell you about it next time.