Canton Fair Online 2020

Canton Fair 2020- The 127th China Import and Export Fair will be held online from June 15th to 24th,2020. Canton Fair online is an innovative measure to actively respond to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, and strive to stabilize the basic foreign trade foreign capital. It is helpful to help foreign trade companies take orders and secure the market, and better play the role of the Canton Fair as an all-round opening platform. The Ministry of Commerce will adhere to the importance of both import and export, do a good job in production, supply and marketing, actively mobilize all forces, improve technical levels, expand the scope of benefiting enterprises, improve supporting services, enhance the online experience of the majority of enterprises and customers, and strive to hold a "special period, "Special significance, special measures, special wonder" online Canton Fair. Welcome domestic and foreign enterprises and merchants to participate actively.

On April 15, China Foreign Trade Center (Group) confirmed Tencent as the technical service provider of the 127th China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair), providing overall technical support, platform R & D services and cloud resource support for the Canton Fair online. In the current epidemic situation, the 127th Canton Fair ushered in an innovative action- to host online, which is also the first time that China has fully held the Canton Fair via the Internet .

Tencent pointed out, based on the technology and eco experience advantages over the past 20 years, it will make full use of WeChat, Tencent Cloud, Tencent Conference, Enterprise WeChat, Translator and other product and service capabilities, strengthen the supply and procurement docking service, and hold a special docking event online to enhance the effectiveness of organizing exhibitions. At the same time, Tencent will also build a live show platform for this session of the Canton Fair, and set up a 24-hour online live broadcast room for exhibitors. The company can not only realize face-to-face negotiations with customers online, but also enlarge market through this platform. An online transaction that subverts traditional cognition is coming, what does this mean for millions of related foreign trade companies and employees?

The Canton Fair is divided into two sessions each year, attracts nearly 200,000 buyers from all over the world attending the fair. What will happen if such a Canton Fair online? Participating enterprises, prefecture-level commerce bureaus, and the Guangdong Trading Delegation told reporters that they still not yet know the situation.

However, according to the State Council Press conference held on the 10th, the Canton Fair Online is mainly for B2B and B2C-assisted. All 25,000 enterprises and exhibits are online, will be distributed according to the original physical exhibition area; Cross-border e-commerce zone is set up to encourage qualified companies to participate; Each company enjoys an independent 10 × 24 hour live show room, which can provide both individual face-to-face and group-oriented live platform.

Based on the analysis, “10 × 24 hours” means that the exhibition period may change from the original 15 days to 10 days. Participants should note that different from the previous form: 3 phases per session, but this time there are no phases.

"Encourage qualified enterprises " means that the old model of allocating the number of participants from the local commercial departments for many years may be changed. Companies other than 25,000 ones will have a great chance to participate.

"Company and exhibits are all online" means that there is no space limit, and the number of products that companies can promote may increase significantly; Moreover, Participating companies should note that exhibits needs to have 3D modeling, accurate images and technical support, all require to be prepared by the enterprises.

Live show has 2 modes: one-to-one & one-to-many, which means that the current common password-type live rooms with goods selling may not be a great challenge for the staff, but this time the live shows that the buyer can follow the camera directly to the factory production line. As we all know, foreign buyers are rarely confirm the order at spot, most people will visit factory, inspect the goods quality and market trends step by step. For small and medium-sized enterprises with unstable customers, improving the level of live shows and taking orders will hopefully bring Nirvana back to life.

Experts believe that although the Canton Fair Online is being held for the first time, the preparation time is very tight, but still have many possibilities.

Canton Fair "online" and e-commerce activities have been carried out for about 20 years.  In 2013, the Canton Fair also established an e-commerce platform. But the buyers did not show high enthusiasm. E-commerce transactions accounted for a relatively low percentage of total transactions. The level of e-commerce in many developed countries is lower than in China, and even worse in Africa and South America. A large number of foreign buyers have low e-commerce awareness, they are more likely to see the real products. Many buyers and exhibitors are still willing to regard the offline Canton Fair as a "social" platform to show the power of the enterprise, make potential customers, and avoid low-quality suppliers. In recent years, placing orders during the exhibition has become increasingly down. Exhibitors must keep providing visit and inspection services for 3 months or even up to 1 year, only this can get the order.

In addition, the development trend of the domestic offline exhibition industry is still quite potential. On March 19, Shanghai passed the first local convention and exhibition industry regulations, "Shanghai Convention and Exhibition Industry Regulations," and proposed to build as the International Exhibition Capital. On March 31, Changsha released the first batch of top 10 key exhibition projects in 2020, which was a significant initiative in the National Exhibition industry.

The value of offline exhibitions cannot be replaced at present, so the integration of online and offline Canton Fair may become a new trend. The new model of the Canton Fair has the characteristics of promote products and company introductions online, together with exploring buyers offline, to support enterprises to develop the market.

Online and offline integration is also the reform trend of the Canton Fair. In recent years, the Canton Fair has carried out the construction of the Smart Canton Fair, through the official website revision, APP upgrade and other measures, it has created six new business models such as preview platform and supply and purchase docking. The online Canton Fair also provides an great opportunity to enable cloud computing, big data, industrial Internet etc. to better promote the high-quality development of trade in practice.

From the professional point of view, it is not clear how to innovate and integrate the balance between online and offline exhibitions . As the world's first exhibition, the Canton Fair is the vane of China's exhibition industry. The cooperation between Canton Fair and Tencent will explore the integration of exhibitions.