Exhibit City News, Page 22
March 2000

Is the industry ready for the e-commerce revolutions?

Exhibitauction.com and exhibit911.com offer online services

A Year ago this month, exhibitauction.com was launched, but was our industry ready? Its goal was to address a big challenge among exhibitors: how to market and sell used exhibits and excess inventory. The internet was the perfect venue to provide the technology to see endless pictures and drawings from office terminals. But was our industry ready? Would a potential buyer of the exhibit log- on, view the pictures and electronically offer a price to buy the exhibit physically unseen? Back to this later.

In past years, general contractors have offered the service of down- loading service kits forms from the web, Orders can be sent on the web and confirmed. TS Central allows potential attendees of tradeshows to register online with a credit card, an e- commerce solution.

The above examples further reinforce that our industry is, or soon will be embracing technology and will not be left behind. This confirms the opportunity which Robert Dobinski, CEO of exhibitauction.com has provided.

The exhibitauction site was receiving over 1000 visits after only a few short months of existence. Jamie Lysik Director of exhibitauction.com, was elated. "For a boutique site offering tradeshow exhibits this was excellent" but few people were buying.

"People would often come to me asking how they could get rid of an old tradeshow booth. They were either paying exorbitant storage costs, or they felt the cost to dispose of the booth was too expensive," said Dobinski. After' 15 years in the tradeshow business, Dobinski felt he had the research and the resources to develop a solution to this problem. Hence, exhibitauction.com.

Within the year that exhibitauction.com has been live on- line its visits have increased by 50 percent. It has a large following both within the United States and internationally, and it gets the job done.

With time, technology advancements evolve and web sites need to change in order to remain industry leaders. Exhibitauction.com is moving with technology and implementing some beneficial changes. Post-your-own auctions are one advancement exhibitauction.com is implementing. Users will have the option of posting their own exhibit online, which will allow even more customization with exhibit listings. Exhibitauction.com is also partnering with Zero Corporation, announced at the Exhibitor Show. They auctioned off Zeros booth live at the show.

EXHIBIT911.COM

Exhibitauction has been serving a very specific need within the industry, but there was a realization based on exhibitauction.com's success and feedback that there was another area within the industry that could be a very useful tool when brought on line

Exhibit911.com (www.exhibit911.com) was developed to act as an e-commerce solution to the tradeshow industry. Launched in January, it serves as a one-stop shop; everything needed from an exhibit to lighting to a roll of Velcro is provided on-line at a 10 percent industry discount. Suppliers are also welcome to inquire about partnering with the site.

Exhibit911.corn is easy to use and works through a secure server with all transactions. Within the next couple of months, message boards will be provided as a service to exhibit911.com users. The message boards will act as a great communication tool for people to get ideas for trade shows as well as get product advice and opinions online from people within the industry.

In order to better familiarize and build trust in exhibit911.com, they will be present at the Exhibitor Show promoting the site. Visitors of the booth received a free tradeshow survival tool and got a brief demonstration on how exhibit911.com works and the security behind it.

Both these sites have proven to be effective at what the industry needs. Technology has fed these two web sites and has allowed them to develop to be a beneficial tool to the industry.