The market in Hong Kong has been speculating for quite a while about the B2B cross-media consolidation. Last year we had the high-profile entrance of Globalsources, its China Sourcing Fair took the trade show industry by storm. Last week the rumor mill was spinning for the suspended Kenfair share trading on the stock market, the price-sensitive acquisition might have something about Alibaba. Reed, not only bought the Shenzhen gifts show, it quietly launched its B2B search engine, Kellysearch.com, in China last month. Kellysearch.com exclusive Chinese partner happens to be the organizer of the previous SES China and the forthcoming Hong Kong Search Expo. The B2B media landscape has a lot of interesting movements. They are the classic cases of “Co-opetition, ” the competition happens between cross-media and gradually be evolved into cooperation for bridging the imperfect market.

Talking about the imperfect market, let’s do a prognosis for the trade show organizers. Traditional trade show organizers are generally conservative in marketing. They sell booths for living, favor quantity over quality. Size does matter for them.

If the online sourcing portals are stepping over the trade show organizers’ territory, I think they have better advantage. Online souring portals have better practice on usability and user experience. It has a perpetual product life-cycle. They are better equipped with technology, the marketing practice should be more scientific and analytical.

But having said that, trade show organizers have better experience in vertical market. They have been in the vertical market long before the online sourcing portals realize the value of niche. Trade show organizers have better relationship with the buyers and sellers, etc, etc, etc.

Aright, I am not trying to build a long list of “Yes-But.” I honestly believe that the online sourcing portals have better advantage over the traditional trade show organizers in the trade show market, at least here in this region. Just two days ago I had a conversation with one of my ex-colleagues in trade show industry. He was struggling although his show was progressing with good quality of exhibitors, the end result wouldn’t look good in terms of the number of booths. I gave him a proposition.

Usability and user experience will take over the number of booth and become the ultimate metric.

They all boil down to one word: “Quality.” And quality yields customer satisfaction, it leads into good business. If the trade show organizers want to push the envelope, they should equate the profitability with the quality of service, not just to multiply the square meter with the number of booths.

Internet sourcing portals have a long history of practice on usability and user experience. The nut-and-bolt trade show organizers have little chance to win the competition over the Souringizers, who also add bits and bytes into their game plan.

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