Tips to Ensure Your Trade Show Shipping Process is Smooth Sailing

Tips to Ensure Your Trade Show Shipping Process is Smooth Sailing

Trade shows are an opportunity for business owners to go beyond the confines of digital marketing to meet and connect with their clients. Despite being among the most ancient forms of marketing, trade shows remain popular and are held in over 252 convention centers across the country every year.

The key to leveraging these shows is ensuring all your merchandise reaches the exhibition grounds in tip-top shape.

On that note, here's how to help ensure your trade show freight shipping process is not only smooth sailing but also all your exhibition materials and merchandise reach the show grounds undamaged.

Read Through the Exhibitor’s Kit for Efficient Planning

There’s more to participating in a trade show than just carrying your merchandise and setting up a booth. You need to meet the rules and regulations put in place by the show organizers. For instance, in some shows, exhibitors are usually expected to ship through advanced warehousing, while in others, exhibitors can ship directly to the show.

The last thing you need after incurring all the costs and expenses is to run into unexpected hold-ups because you failed to meet shipping requirements. In that light, make sure you read your exhibitor kit. It usually has all the information you need about the show as well as trade show freight shipping. Last-minute rush is what leads to the loss and damage of goods. By reading the kit, you get to know the show's timeline and begin shipping preparations accordingly.

Label Your Shipment

Most trade show freight usually ends up lost because the owner didn’t take their time to label it. As an individual or enterprise that has already spent a significant amount of money to be part of the show, lost merchandise is the last thing you need.

Save yourself the stress by labeling all your trade show shipments. Ensure each crate or carton indicates your company's name, the booth number, and the show name even if it’s all meant to be shipped to the same booth. While at it, remember that trade shows usually have labeling requirements. Therefore, make sure you meet these requirements.

Work with a Company that Specializes in Trade Show Shipping

Participating in a trade show on its own is a hectic process. There’s a lot that goes into it, especially if it's an international one — from the paperwork, and marketing, to shipping. Add in arriving at the exhibition grounds to find damaged or lost goods, and you've got a lot on your plate. An easy way to save yourself the trouble is by hiring the services of a company specializing in trade show logistics. Such a company is familiar with shipping and all it takes to get your goods to their destination in perfect condition. This not only scrapes off one responsibility from your to-do list but also gives you peace of mind.

Don’t Send Extra Merchandise

While it can be tempting to use a trade show to market almost all your products, send only those you feel will bring you the most traffic, or that you want to introduce to the market better. Sending extra products not only increases trade show shipment costs but also leaves you with higher storage costs.

Choose a Company that Goes the Extra Mile to Protect Fragile Items

There's regular merchandise and then there are the fragile goods. If your business deals with both or most of your products are fragile, then the key to ensuring they reach the exhibition grounds in perfect condition is protecting them. How do you do that? By packaging separately and also minimizing contact.

You can achieve this by using cushioning materials such as bubble wrap or engineered foam enclosures. While you can do this yourself, it pays to work with a trade show freight carrier that offers specialty freight services. They'll know what to do to help ensure your fragile freight reaches the destination in top shape.

Damaged or lost trade show freight can have a significant impact on your enterprise's ability to meet your trade show participation objectives. The impact is even more major if you're a small or medium-sized business.

The key to avoiding such scenarios is hiring the services of a reputable trade show freight logistics firm and following the tips outlined above.

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