Undoubtedly the most important weekend for the beauty industry, Sydney International Spa & Beauty Expo provided a perfect platform for businesses to launch new products and attract stockists.
Held on Sunday and Monday this year, the 2013 Beauty Expo was an industry gathering that promised to delight, enlighten, inspire and educate the industry. This year, Reed Exhibitions put on a successful show that saw strong positive results for both brands and visitors.
Over the 2 bright sunny days, Darling Harbour was filled with flashes of pink as expo-goers happily flaunted their goodie bags. The entry free introduced this year helped to deliver a bigger and better show for all. The exhibition floor saw many new brands launch and established brands reinstate their position in the market.
Professional Beauty spoke to a few exhibitors about their take on this year’s expo:
Quality over quantity
Compared to the last few years, the expo crowd on Sunday and Monday was less frantic and more manageable. Seizing this as an opportunity to communicate with interested customers, many brands preferred the calmer atmosphere, calling the crowds this year ‘quality over quantity’.
“The numbers are not as big this year but we’ve had more time to talk to customers and really present our products,” said Jessica Hose, marketing coordinator of Caronlab Australia.
Margi Fox, the Australian distributor of Jane Iredale Mineral Makeup agrees with this: “the quality of the people who are here is definitely better than last year, for us, it’s been quality over quantity – more people are approaching our stands as opposed to glancing past.”
Launching products at the expo
Most brands chose to launch new products or publicise upcoming launches at the expo, finding it effective in garnering an audience and multiplying interest. Visitors love hearing about new innovations and trends, the expo helps them to stay ahead by being aware of the latest products before it hits the market.
Matoyla Kollaras, director of Skin Factors Australia used the expo as an opportunity to excite clients about upcoming launches: “we have 2 exciting new products coming and we’ve been letting our clients know, hyping up the anticipation at the expo”.
Choosing to introduce a newly acquired mascara and lash brand at the expo, James Carroll, general manager at International Beauty Supplies was ecstatic about the response he’s had – “we have had a fantastic response launching our new eyewear brand Blink – the brand already has a cult following overseas so when salons saw that we had it, they jumped on it straight away”.
Stars putting on a show
This year, brands brought along their star-status founders and artists to help gather attention. Jane Iredale from Jane Iredale Mineral Makeup was present and spoke to many fans and stockists, Jane also presented a successful live onstage makeup demonstration called ‘Beauty Through the Decades’.
Brands like OPI and Bio Sculpture Gel flew their international artists in to run education seminars and conduct live demonstrations at their stands.
Happy stockists, happy brands
Overall, exhibitors saw great return from the expo. Many secured large new accounts and re-established relationships with old or existing stockists.
“We had a lot of our stockists come and visit us at the stand. A lot of people realised that that they can order directly from Caron and found new stockists they didn’t know in their area – it was also good to see people who haven’t used us in a long time come back to the brand,” Jessica Hose from Caronlab said.
Seeing the benefit of attending the expo consistently every year, Matoyla Kollaras from Skin Factors saw return from her hard work in the previous years: “we’ve seen a lot of people that we spoke to in the previous years come back and decide to take on our product – they’ve had time to think about it and have returned to invest in our brand”.
“Coming to the expo is not only good for brand awareness but to gather good leads and potential customers,” Matoyla added.
For more information on the International Sydney Spa & Beauty Expo click here.