E-COMMERCE MEETS EXHIBITRY
TradeShow & Exhibit Manager, Feb/Mar 2000

Monty Montgomery

In a recent Ernst & Young survey it was projected that on-line sales for just the previous year holiday season would be between twelve to fifteen billion and the estimate of the total revenue for the calendar year is twenty-five to thirty billion dollars. Business to business e-commerce has taken business by storm. The Internet is becoming a shopping mall for every need you can imagine, including tradeshow needs.

The tradeshow industry, too, is learning to develop more of an understanding for e-commerce and use it as a tool to add efficiency and productivity to their marketing programs.

A VIRTUAL AUCTION

Exhibitauction.com was launched in February 1999. The idea behind this auction site was developed by CEO Bob Dobinski, who felt an auction site would be perfect for the tradeshow industry. Companies could use the site as a place to go if they needed a tradeshow booth but didn't want to make the commitment of purchasing a new one or if they no longer had a use for their existing booth and wanted to get rid of it. Dobinski created exhibitauction.com, an auction site that auctions off used tradeshow booths in a quick and effective manor. Dobinski hired on Jaime Lysik as director and she ran with the opportunity. Exhibitauction.com has become the premiere auction web site for the tradeshow industry, with over a thousand visits per month.

As Lysik watched exhibitauction.com develop, she began to realize that people within the industry may not be necessarily looking to make the commitment of purchasing a booth. She realized they were missing out on an enormous opportunity.

EXPANDING HORIZONS

Exhibit911.com started out as a 48-hour fulfillment site for the rental of exhibits and accessories. Users could log on to the site and rent various different exhibits for a fixed cost and rapid delivery time. This fixed cost included the exhibit, graphics, labor and shipping. It was an ideal turnkey solution.

According to the company, the site received an incredible amount of support from its parent company, Corporate Communications, Inc, an event management company that has been in business for over fifteen years. They support over 400 domestic and international events a year. Corporate Communications, Inc, supplies exhibit systems, rentals, logistical support and labor. They are the ground that exhibit911.com is built upon.

DEVELOPMENT

When the site launched, Lysik started getting e-mails from users wanting to buy the exhibits and accessories or just looking for direction. People didn't know where to go to purchase specific items for their tradeshow needs. That is when everything fell into place. Lysik formed a team to strategize and develop this new e-commerce idea using the current exhibit911 as a base.

Working with what they had and what they thought exhibit911.com should be, they developed a multipurpose e-commerce site. Exhibit911.com now allows users to purchase or rent a variety of tradeshow materials from turnkey exhibits to lighting and rolls of Velcro. It has expanded its horizons and offers high items on demand for the tradeshow industry, and also serves as a distributor for some well known display companies.

Monty Montgomery is a sometime contributor to T&EM. Editorial content was provided by exhibitauction.com.