California Apparel News

Trade show producers are looking to expand the traditional business model in a new direction: online. Show producers and e-tailers also are looking at social-networking practices to add a new dimension to the trade show experience.

“We are not here to take away from live trade shows,” said Kele Meenan, founder of the newly launched Forward Global Trade Show. “They will never go away. We are just here to build another format.”

The Los Angeles–based company will hold a trade event only in cyberspace on March 3–4, 2010, and it is receiving strong interest for its debut.

High-profile specialty retailers Atrium and Lisa Kline confirmed they will be “walking” the show. Premium-denim label Rock & Republic will be exhibiting at the show (www.forwardshow.com).

Meenan has big plans for the new show. Like a physical trade show, Forward vendors will exhibit—online—at booths. But Forward’s “cyber booths” will utilize similar social-networking applications like those found on Web sites such as Facebook.

For example, retailers will be able to browse through the latest styles by checking out a YouTube video of a runway show at the booth. Walking the show might be as easy as shopping at a consumer e-commerce boutique. Retailers will be able to find out what brands are exhibiting at the cyber trade show just by browsing a drop-down menu or by looking at a search engine to find out what categories of clothes are available at the show.

Retailers and vendors will be able to talk business on Forward’s site through the communications technology du jour—whether it is blogs, instant messaging or perhaps video conferencing. Since schmoozing is one of the most important activities at a trade event, Forward will create a cyber stage for socializing. It will be Forward’s lounge and bar area. The cyber trade show’s vendors and attendees can move an avatar—or a character or picture that will symbolize them on the site—to the Forward show’s version of the Internet chat room.

Rock & Republic Chief Executive Michael Ball said in an e-mail statement that the cyber trade show will help his premium-denim label deliver product and communicate with retailers and its consumers faster than before.

Atrium buyer Alan Fernandez said he would judge the cyber trade show the same way he weighs the relevance of any trade show. “It’s a matter of what brands are there,” he said. “We’re going to explore and see what it is.”

Increasingly, Fernandez said, he orders merchandise for his store from online catalogs vendors send him. Participating in a cyber trade show would not be that different, he said.

Exactly how retailers will shop and do business at Forward remains to be seen. It might be a primary wholesale market for some retailers. It might serve as a place to play catch-up. Others might use it to do business with the labels they could not contact during physical trade shows, Meenan said. Getting social

Another California company, online showroom site Hotter Than Hollywood, also hopes to use social-networking technology to boost the ease of doing business.

When it debuted in Summer 2009, Hotter Than Hollywood offered services such as videotaping line sheets, where live models would display a fashion label’s styles. The video line sheets could be accessed at www.hotterthanhollywood.com.

In early 2010, Hotter Than Hollywood co-founder Mary Helen Shashy said her online showroom site will offer more social-networking functions. Buyers and vendors will be identified by a Facebook-style user profile.

By doing business with a profile, the vendor can control who is allowed into his or her online showroom and who has tried to access it. The vendor also can confirm who is not visiting his or her profile. If a retailer had stopped making regular visits to the profile, for example, Hotter Than Hollywood’s technology would inform the vendor that the retailer stopped browsing the profile. It could serve as a wake-up call for the online vendor to renew the relationship with the retailer.

Both the Forward show and Hotter Than Hollywood are among the first businesses to try producing online trade shows and online showrooms. Established businesses such as the MAGIC Marketplace and Pooltradeshow are already using social-networking applications such as Twitter to communicate with their vendors and retailers. Other trade show producers said they believe the cyber world will not work in a market where one of the five senses is critical. “It’s hard to touch a fabric through a computer screen,” said Jason Bates, chief executive of the biannual Class trade show, based in Santa Monica, Calif.

Meenan said she believes what is possible in cyber trade shows will only be contained by the constantly evolving world of technology. “It’s going to be as big as we can dream,” she said.