TRADE FAIRS

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 75, 26 September 1917, Page 4

TRADE FAIRS

OPENINGS IN NEW ZEALAND

"HIGH TIME TO BEGIN."-

The well-known Leipsio Messe, or j trade fair, has not been attended by British business men since the war —for obvious reasons. Presumably Leipsio itself has been too busy to make the roesso the important affair it used to be. Instead, trade fairs have been held in London, under Government auspices. Manufacturers supplied samples,, merchants gave orders. Business was done to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Many observers who saw only the surface of things did not think Britain had it in her. They did not know. They did not know, as every man actually in business knows, that British trade methods, capable of improvement as they may be, are not antiqualted, and are "straight." Still, the buying public, wholesale and retail, needs educating in Britain quite as much as elsewhere. In Now Zealand a lot can be done to push British goods by displaying them to the public in a business way—to the business public first, and secondly to the buy-over^fche-counter public. At such exhibitions the former can do business, andl the latter can be educated as' to where to buy the goods in a retail way. Mr. Dalton has already done experimental work of the kind in Now Zealand, at Wellington and at Hawera. The results in both instances are understood to have been most encouraging. Orders for considerable amounts were booked. That is the true and only test of the value of «, trade exhibition.. In his annual report the Commissioner remarks:—"l am disposed to think, 'however, that the organisation of a comprehensive exhibition of British goods -in New Zealand as coon us possible after the end of the war would be one of the moat useful steps that could be taken to advertise British trade in general a»d individual firms' products. An exhibition of this character would serve the dual purpose both of inducing sales and of showing Ithat the United Kingdom is still a great and powerful industrial quantity. There would be a great difficulty in housing such an exhibition,' if it were at all representative, in any one town of N«fw Zealand, but I feel sure thalt it wonld be of the greatest practical benefit. BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. "The prime responsibility. for making their goods known must, however, devolve on firms themselves. From enquiries which I receive and from investigations I have made in all parts of New Zealand, I am convinced that in many cases foreign goods are selling only .because they have been introduced to the buyer, and corresponding. British goods have not. In other oases foreign goods are selling because the organisation for iheir sale is better and not because the goods themselves are cheaper or as reliable. It is in this respect that British manufacturersy are lacking. As manufacturers I think it ia generally admitted (and the war has been further proof) that they cannot be outclassed by the manufacturers of any country in the world. At present it is generally realised that their difficulties in the United Kingdom are so great that they cannot give all the attention they otherwise might to private trade, but iit-is very important that they should lay their plans, for after-the-war competition. Foreign, firms are organising to'the best of their ability. If our manufotcturers axes to recover their ground and improve it they must organise before it is too late."