Budget Trade Show Displays

It’s hard to beat budget table top displays when you consider cost, convenience, portability, and presentation effectiveness. Table top displays allow you to enhance your brand image even when you’re up against a space or cost limit.

Inexpensive tabletop displays can be used in many business related events such as trade shows, sales presentations, and any special corporate events.

Overall budget table top displays can be a cheap yet effective way of allowing your exhibit to look professional even when your money is limited.

There are four basic types of budget table top displays. Small folding displays or briefcase displays, table top pop up displays, panel displays, and finally modular table top displays.

For sample prices on affordable table top displays: Budget Table Top Displays.

How trade show booths and displays are bought and sold has changed dramatically over the last few years. Some of the changes — such as overall lower retail prices — have been good for trade show booth buyers. On the other hand, the increased number of smaller trade show booth sellers on the internet has had a dampening effect on customer satisfaction.

Trade Show Booth Market History

Up until just a few years ago, virtually all purchasing of trade show displays at the retail level was done at a bricks and mortar showroom. The industry was dominated by a few big trade show display manufacturers who sold their products wholesale to regional distributors who were granted geographic sales territories.

To be a trade show distributor meant you had the financial means to have retail showroom space as well as a line of credit with the manufacturer for purchasing products wholesale. Manufacturers in turn were fairly picky as to who they allowed to get distributor rights. A distributor needed to show that they had ample industry knowledge as well the ability to provide the end user with the proper level of customer support.

Since there were fewer distributors in the market and less competition, distributors were able to maintain hefty margins on the trade show booth sales.

It was not at all unusual for distributors to purchase a 10 foot pop up display for $1000 wholesale and then sell it for $3000 or more at the retail level.

Changes to the Trade Show Booth Wholesale Market

Today, the wholesale market for trade show booths has changed. Many major trade show booth manufacturers have decided to allow distributors to sell their products over the internet in order to capitialize on the ecommerce explosion.

In addition, more trade show booth manufacturers have entered the market that was once dominated by a few large companies such as Abex, Skyline, and Nomadic.

This loosening of the standards to become a distributor as well as the increased number of manfacturers has had several effects on the trade show booth market:

1) It has replaced the relatively small number of regional trade show booth distrbutors with many smaller internet distributors.

2) The increase in internet distributors has created more competition which has driven down the distributor margins. 5 years ago distributors could purchase a traditional 10 foot popup display for $1000 wholesale and would commonly sell it at a 200% markup. Today, the markups for 10 foot popup displays are closer to the 20% - 30% range. And the margins continue to drop as more internet sellers — who typically have very little overhead — continue to slash their retail prices.

3) The loosening of distributor qualifications has allowed many internet trade show businesses to enter the marketplace with very little — if any — industry or product knowledge. This lack of industry and product knowledge by many internet distributors has lowered the customer support levels for the trade show booth industry as a whole.

What This Means For The Budget Trade Show Booth Buyer

As mentioned above, as more distributors enter the market we will continue to see:

• More falling retail prices
• More imports from China and Korea
• Poorer customer support from the majority of online sellers who are only invested for the short term
• A tendency towards graphic design offerings as margins on hard products drop
• Some innovative product development as manufacturers try to break out of the product commoditization of trade show displays