Australian product sourcing specialist and exporting success story Viano has reported strong interest in the brand following its trailblazing appearance at the Canton Fair last month.
An enormous sourcing expo covering a cavernous space in southern China, the Canton Fair’s hegemony is traditionally Australian retailers and brands visiting Chinese exhibitors to develop new products for their local markets. It is very unusual to have an Australian exhibitor generating leads and closing sales, according to managing director Fabio Grassia.
“With our factory base and setup in China, I embarked in 2013 on a growth plan and utilised our facility in China to grow our business initially to other markets, such as China and the Middle East,” Grassia said.
In the past, Viano has secured export deals into diverse countries such as New Zealand, Israel and Fiji. After the success of the Fair, Grassia said these could soon be complemented with nations like Slovenia or Saudi Arabia.
“The Fair generated better success than we anticipated,” he said. “We had a total of 40-50 strong leads, many from the Middle East and Eastern European markets.”
We asked Grassia what types of customers expressed interest in Viano products.
“The type of customer we are talking about ranges from a mass retailer to local importer. There was a lot of interest in our larger format TVs, followed by our internet tablets, plus there was an overwhelming interest in our new range of Viano Android smartphones.”
As evidence of how successful the trip was for Viano, Grassia confirmed that the brand would be exhibiting again in the New Year.
The next Canton Fair (Electronics) is being held 15-19 April 2014 at the China Import and Export Fair Complex in Guangzhou.
