FAME Exhibit and International Trading Business
Wow, last week was a killer - I was busy at the exhibit booth at Manila FAME. I’ve been all around the World Trade Center (just at the end of Buendia Avenue) and the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC). The two locations are several hundred meters apart and a number of FAME-Sponsored shuttles ferried buyers/exhibitors/visitors back and forth.
So, what can I say? I have just discovered that apparently, the Philippines is ‘the Milan’ (as my colleague describes it) of Arts and Crafts in Asia. This is one of the reasons why we have regular international trade fairs. Buyers from all over (Europe, Japan, Korea and US) troop to the Manila FAME exhibits and look at what new designs and concepts they could sell back in their home countries.
I am told that the handicrafts and artworks we create are of really high quality. Filipinos/Filipinas are known to create really GOOD stuff. Unfortunately, the rest of Asia seem to be catching up. The insider info I’ve been hearing is that the cheap and abundant labor forces from China, Malaysia and other Asian countries are driving Art Prices down. This is bad news to our local exporters. In fact I saw a number of frowning exhbitors on the last day of FAME. One of the exhibitors told me that there are few buyers on this event compared to last year. For their sake, I hope it’s not a trend.
On a positive note, I’ve also learned that international trading can be a rewarding venture. To give you an idea, one of the people I met was able to get a P1Million Peso order. Her investment for the exhibit was around P250,000. Taking in consideration the possible costs for inventory, shipping and labor for the crafts-development, my guess is that she could probably pocket a hefty 300 thousand pesos and up.
Another exhibitor told me, although he had fewer buyers this event, he was actually able to close a much bigger deal. His investment for the exhibit was around P500,000. I’m guessing he probably got a good 2 Million Peso order.
One exhibit booth, I noticed, seemed to always have foreign buyers around them. The buyers(their ID indicated they were buyers) had measuring-sticks and rulers to measure the dimensions of the art crafts. The items here were mostly Christmas Decorations. As I understood it, they were estimating the dimensions of the artworks for shipping purposes. People were milling around them. I’m not an art-expert but I’m guessing that the crafts they made were popular.
Kudos to our Filipino Exporters. Good luck to you all. For those who would like to go into business, consider international trading. It would be good to have a mentor guide you through this, and perhaps a foreign counterpart to market your art abroad.
[This article is part of the Experiencing the Philippines series. Subscribe now and read some more.]
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