Q. What’s an Online Only Expo?

A. An online-only expo is an event where both visitors and exhibitors come together on an online platform (website/app) and interact with each other.

Q. Why do we need an Online Only Expo?

A. With ‘Social Distancing’ becoming a way of life–the prospect of organising traditional events where we get to physically meet each other–seems a bit challenging in the near future. But, the need for Buyers and Sellers to connect–remains.

Besides the risk to health and safety because of diseases like Corona, traditional events involve a lot of investments–man-power, travel, materials, physical exhibits, shipment of products and equipment, etc–all a burden on our environment.

Thus, we believe an Online Only expo is to traditional events, what Google is to traditional phone directories.

Q. But is it needed during these days of doom and gloom?

A. Well that depends on your perspective. We believe there will be TWO types of organisations right now:

1. Those who are facing a ‘Fight for Survival, and are looking at cutting all possible costs to survive.We appreciate the challenges being faced by them, and would suggest them to first think-through the question “if our team managed to meet 100 good customers–will that translate into quick cash for us to survive?” If the answer is not a resounding yes–we will advise them to not to invest in TWC at this stage.
2. At the same time, there will be many firms who are fortunate enough to be in a ‘Let’s Be the Leader Despite Odds’ mode. These firms are the ones who typically believe more in customer outreach, and invest in it.We believe that even in challenging times like these, these firms (and their leaders) will be looking at smart and inexpensive options to connect with customers and prospects and build a strong top-of-the-mind recall–so that once business resumes–customers will flock to them. TWC is the perfect platform for such firms.

Q. What are the similarities and differences between an online-only expo and a traditional expo?

A. While designing our Online Only expo platform, we tried to look at the core values that a traditional expo creates for its exhibitors and visitors. We wanted to see how many of these values can be replicated by the Online Only expo, and which of them will get sacrificed. Here’s how our online-only expo compares:

1. Enables Buyers and Sellers to have face-to-face interactions. Yes! Our platform will enable face to face interactions too–using the power of video conferencing tools.
2. Enables Buyers and Sellers to be there at one place at the same time. This will certainly be achieved. TWC will be held on specific dates within specific time slots, so that Exhibitors and Visitors can confidently use the platform to engage with each other.
3. Enables Buyers and Sellers of specific product categories to connect. While trade shows create physical zones and halls to segregate exhibitors–digital technology enables us to make it even easier for buyers to locate the suppliers they seek. In other words, while the digital event can cater to a larger variety of exhibitors and audiences, it can provide simple tools to audiences to identify the exhibitors they seek. In other words, the Long Tail of exhibitors is possible now.
4. Enables Exhibitors to exhibit their innovations and new products. Again, this can easily be achieved through TWC too. In fact, our platform enables you to provide supporting documents such as price lists, white-papers, videos, etc without having to invest in bags, kits, USB drives, print-outs, etc.
5. Enables Exhibitors to build a list of prospects: Here again, a digital platform does better than a traditional one. At TWC, you will not be required to store any business cards or scan any badges of visitors. You will get data of all visitors who engage with you (and allow sharing of their data) automatically, at the end of the day.
6. Enables touch and feel of products. Online Only expo will not enable this. But, we hope that for many Tech products and solutions–touch and feel is not an important consideration. And, for those exhibitors who need this aspect–we would (humbly) not advise them to exhibit at an Online Only event.

Q. You mentioned LONG TAIL of exhibitors. What are the NEW type of exhibitors that can exhibit here who would not exhibit at a traditional event?

A. Amazon.com and Netflix have taught us that the concept of Long Tail works brilliantly in online platforms. In other words, products or services which have very limited audiences–find traditional platforms to be very expensive and wasteful w.r.t. RoI. However, since Digital Platforms enables the unique set of audiences to explore their unique set of requirements effortlessly–these same Long Tail suppliers find amazing success on an Online Only platform.

Two examples that come to mind:

1. You want to sell your used equipment (2nd hand). You will not take the risk of investing in a large expensive booth–not knowing if you will get a buyer. Plus, your sale value may not be equivalent to the value of the booth! But, with TWC’s 10K entry price, it’s a no brainer. In fact, you could be amongst the most visited exhibitors–since many seeking 2nd hand equipment now know where to get it from!
2. You want to sell off your unsold inventory. Almost anyone into manufacturing has unsold inventory on their hands. Some dispose of it as garbage due to lack of a platform to find buyers for the same. Here is one–now!

Q. What is a booth in an online only expo? Do we have to get it designed like a normal booth?

A. A booth in an online-only expo is nothing but a combination of the following:

• Your team that’s there (LIVE) to interact with the audiences
• Your exhibits (products, promotions or offers) to attract your audience to engage with you
• Your organisation profile

Q. It seems nice to read about. But is there some demo or video one can look at to get a better sense of how this Expo will look like to an audience? How simple or complex will it be for audiences to engage with exhibitors?

A. Yes, there is.

We have put together a short video to display the Mock version of the platform being put together by our IT team. WARNING: It’s a bit amateurish. Professional grade version will be released soon.

Q. How important is Internet Bandwidth?

A. It’s not important–it’s critical. In fact, your selection of which team member to have at the booth should be based on whether he/she has a strong Internet connection available to them.

Q. What all modes of interaction will be there between Visitors and Exhibitors?

A. While we will be providing multiple options for your team to interact with the audience, to ensure you get maximum benefit from your booth, we suggest you look at your Online Booth as an extension of your team. In fact, it can do maximum marketing for you in a DIY mode for your audiences. Allow me to explain. A large percentage of visitors on any booth typically seek supporting information for the exhibits or the firm. If you plan well and upload all necessary information on your online booth–then your audience will get the information they seek in a DIY (do it yourself) mode, and you will get information about who sought which info–something your team can’t keep a tab on, if done manually!

Coming back to the question, audiences will be able to interact with your team via the following methods:

1. Face to face video interactions
2. Telephone calls
3. Chat

Q. How are you confident that the audience will come to an online only expo?

A. If we sent you an email inviting you to explore India’s first online only expo–would you not be curious to come and check it out?

Also, given that we are all locked down at homes, would a platform where we can explore new technology, new suppliers, network with new people–not excite you to attend the event?

Q. What does Tech World Congress stand for–as an event?

A. At EFY, we have always believed that Technology Drives Us (sometimes, it drives us crazy too). And, we have been blessed to have a deep connection with the techies who either create or deploy technology. They are going to be the target audience for TWC.

Q. How would you define TWC–a B2B or a B2C event?

A. While every audience is going to be an individual per se, but because the decisions they are going to be making will be related to their work–hence, TWC will be a B2B (trade) show by classical definition.

Q. Why the @Home in front of TWC?

A. Given the lock-down across the globe, there are high chances that our audience will be operating from home than offices. Hence, the addition of ‘@Home’ to represent the current reality.

Q. Who should exhibit at TWC?

A. Anyone who’s got a product, solution or service to sell to a creator or deployer of technology. As indicated earlier, TWC being an online-only event can turn out to be a great platform for even Long Tail firms (suppliers of very niche products or services). Plus, thanks to its low fee–it seems like a Zero Risk investment.

Q. Typical booths are priced at per square meter basis. How is your booth priced?

A. Good question. Since there is no area that we are selling here–there is no question of pricing booths based on the area occupied. Hence, only have a standard booth, with standard deliverables. And, then we have options to pay and increase some of the deliverables for those who want to.

Q. Why is the price so low? Is there some catch?

A. There are multiple reasons behind this decision. You may select the ones that seem the right ones to you…

1. The cost of execution of an online-only event is much lower than a traditional event–especially given that we have no competition across the globe (or almost nil).
2. Our cost of audience marketing is very low–since we have good connections with the techies.
3. It’s a new concept–and we do not want the price to be an entry barrier for exhibitors to try and taste success.
4. Businesses are looking at cutting costs to survive–hence we did not want to burden them with high investments at this stage. Once they start growing, we are sure they will enable us to improve our margins.
5. We want to establish a Made in India platform at the global stage–and want to do everything possible to make that happen.

Q. Is there a mobile App for it too–which we have to download?

A. TWC will not require any app that needs to be downloaded and installed. It will simply work from any Web Browser–though the most preferred option will be Google Chrome (it’s FREE too).

While the design of the website is going to be Responsive, which means it will be visible in a mobile device too–but the overall design has been developed ‘Desktop First’ given the serious nature of the engagement and the average time spent by audiences and especially exhibitors.

We will be actively promoting use of Desktops and Laptops amongst audiences and exhibitors–to ensure they get the best experience.

Q. What are the main deliverables in a Standard Booth?

A. Here’s what you get when you invest in a Standard Booth:

1. 1 exhibitor booth–this is the page where you will provide information regarding your firm
2. 5 exhibits (pages)–these are the pages where you will provide information regarding your exhibits i.e. products, solutions, services, promotions or offers.
3. 1 central controller account–this is the account that will manage and update all details (but will NOT have access to LIVE interaction capability)
4. 2 LIVE personnel accounts–these are the accounts that will have the LIVE interaction capability, which means audiences will be able to interact with them
5. 15 hall-selections–this is the ability to select which exhibit be listed in which hall (you can display same exhibit across different halls)

Q. Can the Controller be a LIVE personnel too?

A. Yes. That’s possible–you can provide the same email ID for both accounts.

Q. Can we exhibit in different halls of our liking?

A. Yes. As mentioned, by default you will have 15 hall-selections. Hence, you can select an average of 3 halls for each exhibit. But if we get repeated feedback from audiences that they are seeing you exhibit in a hall which is not related to you (for example you are displaying Capacitors in a Test & Measurement Solutions Hall OR displaying solution for Industrial IoT in a Medical Solutions hall)–then we will be forced to shut off your exhibit in that hall.

Q. Can multiple people login using the same user ID simultaneously?

A. No, that will NOT be possible. We will be restricting one simultaneous login at a time. If we see an attempt to misuse this feature–our team will have the right to suspend your account.

Q. How many user IDs will we get to participate in this event?

A. Please refer to the ‘main deliverables of a standard booth’ for details. Nutshell: 1 controller and 2 Live Interaction accounts.

Q. How can we identify and interact with prospective customers?

A. Like in a traditional expo, your team will be waiting for audiences to come to your booth and engage with you. To enable this, you will need to ensure that you have followed the basic guidelines to ensure a successful presence at TWC.

Q. What shall be the communication medium with visitors? Will it be only chatting or can we do video conferencing from your platform?

A. As on date of writing, the primary communication medium for visitors to engage with you are video-conferencing and telephone. If time permits, we will be enabling a chat facility too.

Q. Will we get a complete database of exhibitors and visitors post event?

A. You will get database of those visitors who visited your booth and permitted sharing of their contact details (dropped their business card), and those who engaged with your team. Database of other visitors and exhibitors will NOT be shared.

Q. What all information will be shared in this database? How will we access the database?

A. An option will be provided to all exhibitors in their Controller console to view and download databases. Typical information shared in the database will include:

1. Name
2. Designation
3. Organisation
4. Email ID
5. Phone #
6. Actions Performed on Your Booth
7. Date & Time of Action Performed

Q. How will be the leads generated in the event?

A. This will be pretty similar to a normal expo. Here are the different types of lists a typically exhibitor will be able to generate:

1. Those who dropped their cards
2. Those who took details (downloaded whitepaper, price-ist, video, etc)
3. Those who engaged with your team via telephone or video-conferencing

Q. What do you mean by exhibits? How is it different from our products/solutions?

A. We are using a broad term ‘exhibits’ to denote any product, service, solution or offer that you may want to promote amongst the audiences. It could even be a job opening! A standard booth will have 5 exhibits, which can be placed across 15 halls (3 halls per exhibit on an average).

Standard types of exhibits may include:

1. Equipment
2. Products
3. Materials
4. Services
5. Solutions

Alternatively, you may plan your exhibits amongst these ideas:

1. Special Offers
2. New Products
3. Innovations
4. Resale Offers
5. Job Offers
6. Inventory Sale/ Stock Clearance

Q. Can I have one exhibit displayed in only one hall, and another across 5 halls?

A. Yes, you can. As long as you do not exhaust your total quota of hall-selections, you can decide which exhibit to select in how many halls.

You may want to be careful and avoid having an exhibit not being displayed at any hall.

Q. What is the Drop Your Business Card option? Can it be used by visitors to let us know to contact them when they found our team busy?

A. Yes, that’s exactly what this option is for.

Q. How will the audience find us?

A. This is the Million Dollar question. While there will be some paid promotional tools shared at a later stage for exhibitors to attract visitors, we are answering this question for all of you who are investing in a Standard Booth only.

Here’s how they will find you:

1. Your customers (and those you’ve invited) will search for you and hence will find your from the Search Bar
2. But, most visitors will find you from list of exhibits and how they are listed in the halls selected by you

In other words, it’s critical that you (1) write titles and details of your Exhibits nicely and (2) select the right halls.

Here’s the SUPER TIP: Select the Halls that you believe will attract your target audience, and not your competitors.

For example, if you have an innovative Test & Measurement solution–it would be better that you first exhibit it in the Innovation Hall rather than in the Test & Measurement Hall.

Why? There are high chances that audiences will first want to view all Innovations before they go to standard-vanilla halls. Only your competitors will be the ones who might go to the Test & Measurement Hall first–to see what their competition is displaying.

Of course, if you don’t have an innovation or have not explained the innovation well–then you run the risk of getting negative feedback from visitors, which may result in our team moving your exhibit out of that hall.

Q. What all pieces of information should you be ready with to create good content for your booth and exhibits?

A. While this list of not comprehensive but it covers most of the details:

1. Exhibitor Page:
   
   • Company Profile
   • Booth Design (optional)
   • Contact Details to Display
   • Facia Title (how you want your firm to be listed)
   • Contact Info for Audiences to contact you later
2. Exhibits Page:
   
   • Image of Exhibit / Promotion (4:3 aspect ratio)
   • Attractive Title of Exhibit (10 words)
   • Attractive Intro of Exhibit (25 words)
   • Link to Website related to Exhibit
   • Link to download Document related to Exhibit
   • Link to Video related to Exhibit

Q. Is there a max size for video or is there a max size for maybe 3 pdfs? Because some of our products may have more than 1 pdf?

A. We have tried to make things simple for exhibitors. We do not want you to download a video from one platform and upload to another. Same for PDFs, etc. Hence, our system will allow you to simply update the link to the source of the document, and in case of video, update its embed code.

Q. How many documents, videos and web-links can we provide?

A. As of now, we have a limitation of one document, one web link and one video link per exhibit.No documents or videos are allowed for the organisation page, except the URL of your official website.

Q. I don’t have my documents or videos on my website. What do I do?

A. You can simply use any cloud-based drive such as Google Drive, and upload these files on a Shared Folder. Most of these services are free and provide good storage capabilities from 5GB to 15GB.

Q. How do we handle multiple PDFs for a single exhibit?

A. One simple tip could be that you use a tool like PDF editor and save multiple PDFs into one PDF document, and then upload it into a public server—even Google Drive would do.

Q. Why are there restrictions on the number of documents and videos?

A. While we see no challenge in creating these capabilities but it’s the user-interface that worries us. Between flexibility and simplicity we have chosen simplicity for now. Because, we want to make sure that updating organisation and exhibit is a simple task for our exhibitors. You should not spend more than an hour on this task.

Q. What all software tools do we need to master to take maximum advantage of our investment at TWC?

A. Most of the work will be done through a standard web browser–so not much complex technology involved. Having said that, few tips will help you maximise benefits:

1. Your team should become comfortable with Google Meet and Microsoft Skype–two platforms through which visitors may choose to do video conferencing with your team (note–default option will be Google Meet, which is super simple).
2. Your team which is going to engage in video conferencing should have adequate bandwidth.
3. If they are using a wireless router at home–then they should try and put it on a UPS–so that in case of any electrical issues–connection is not disrupted in between a conversation with a client
4. They should have access to a laptop/desktop–as the entire platform will be ‘desktop first’ and not ‘mobile first’ given the serious nature of engagement involved.

Q. What will EFY be doing to enable exhibitors to be ready and prepared?

A. We will be releasing a lot of short videos for your team to explain how to use our platform and tools like Google Meet and Microsoft Skype (both are FREE to use for individuals right now). Plus, we will keep updating this FAQ.

What we need from you –are your doubts, queries and suggestions.

Q. At a typical trade show, visitors are able to see our equipment LIVE in action. Will we miss this opportunity at TWC?

A. Errr with a little bit of smart thinking you can solve this problem too. Few ideas…

1. If you have a video of that equipment in action–you can display that in the Exhibits page
2. Better still, if you are at the same place as the equipment, or a colleague of yours in another country can be–you can video call them in and have them display the equipment LIVE!

NUTSHELL: With LIVE video-conferencing–the sky’s the limit for creative folks.

In fact, we will be eagerly looking forward to best practices being shared by our exhibitors on how they maximized this platform for their benefits–and Rewarding the Top 10–a month after TWC.

Q. How do we handle the situation where there are multiple visitors wanting to engage with your team?

A. We have created a feature for your team which enables them to mark themselves as Busy every time a user calls them (telephone or video-conferencing). Once the call gets over–they can toggle themselves back to Available status. This stops other visitors from calling the same team member and getting annoyed that they are already busy.

If they see that your entire team is Busy, they may use the facility titled ‘Drop My Card’ which is essentially an indicator to your team to call the visitor once a member of your team gets free.

Q. What to do if my team is always turning out to be busy and more and more visitors are coming?

A. If you have additional team members who can handle queries and can go LIVE, then you may review the option of upgrading an extra LIVE person at the rate of Rs 1000 per day OR Rs 1500 for all 3 days.

Q. What are the additional services that we can avail by paying extra?

A. As mentioned above, the standard booth comes with specific deliverables. Please refer below for the additional services:

1. Additional Exhibit: ₹2,000 + GST | USD 30 Per Exhibit
2. Additional LIVE Personnel: ₹1,500 + GST | USD 25 Per Person
3. Additional Hall Selection: ₹1,000 + GST | USD 20 Per Hall Selection

Q. How and where can we do the registration?

A. Registration for audiences will be made available by (or before) 5th of July 2020.

Q. Will everyone who comes to my booth be pre-registered or can there be walk-ins too?

A. Unregistered visitors will not be allowed to enter our Exhibition Halls or Conferences in the trail edition. However, we are trying to implement this in the main edition.

Q. How will EFY validate authenticity of contact-details and profile-info shared by the audience while registering?

A. During the registration process–we will be authenticating the email ID or mobile number of each registrant. In many cases–both. However, the challenge with respect to authenticity of profile information will remain the same as that of any traditional event. Research suggests that on average about 7% of visitors provide false information for varied reasons. We expect that this figure might be double–that of a traditional event–in a worst-case scenario. But again, those are not the visitors you should be interested in engaging with anyways.

Q. I am interested. What do I do now?

A. Great. Let a member of our sales team know about your decision. If you’re not sure whom to contact, shoot an email at growmybiz@efy.in mentioning your contact details, and one of us will contact you within 4 working hours.

Overall, we have started enabling interested clients to make their payment and book their booth.

Q. Why should I book early? Any advantage?

A. The sooner you register and pay, the earlier your firm is listed in the List of Exhibitors—similar to early exhibitors getting a better location than those who book late.

Q. What is the investment for a standard booth?

A. Here are the details:

1) A Standard e-Booth costs INR 20,000 (plus GST)/ USD 350. This e-booth comes with the Money Back Guarantee.
2) We also have a LITE e-booth, which costs Rs 5,000 only—has limited features, and does not come with the Money Back Guarantee—but would be a great option for those short of cash flow.

Q. What are the charges for Upgrades?

A. Here are the options to upgrade along with charges:

1. Additional LIVE Personnel: Rs 1500 per person
2. Additional Hall Selection: Rs 1000 per Hall Selection
3. Additional Exhibits: Rs 2000 per exhibit

Q. Can I Upgrade in the middle of the show? Will the rates vary as per number of days left?

Q. What are the rates for international exhibitors? What about GST for them?

A. We define International Exhibitors as those whose invoice is to be raised on an address outside India AND who will make a payment in US$.

For International Exhibitors, same rates will apply but there will be a 15% extra charges for currency exchange & fluctuation and payment gateway fee. In other words, our payment gateway will add 15% to the amount applicable and then convert them into US$ before deducting charges.

For international exhibitors, print invoices will NOT be sent by default. And if required, an extra charge of US$ 150 will be levied to send the same.

The GOOD NEWS for international exhibitors is that GST is not applicable on them, and hence they do not have to pay the applicable (18%) GST.

Q. How can we pay? What are the options?

A. TWC is an entirely digital platform which is integrated from end-to-end. Hence, we have only ONE option to pay, which is to pay online via the Payment Gateway. Once the system receives your payment, it will automatically send you a Receipt and login details to get started with your booth.

Q. Can we pay via cheque/DD/NEFT?

A. Unfortunately NO. To make the process seamless and error-free (by reducing human intervention)–we have integrated the login access for exhibitors with their online payments.

Q. How do I pay via online if my company does not have such a facility?

A. Since the ticket price is very low, we urge you to pay through your personal card in such a case, and claim reimbursement. We are sure your organisation will readily reimburse you for such an important investment.

Q. When will the invoice be issued?

A. We will be issuing the invoice on the last day of the main event. The invoice will be emailed to your central ID as well as generated on your Exhibitor Console for you to download. We will also print and mail signed and stamped copies of invoices within 1 week of the event being held, and their consignment details will be shared via our website again.

Q. What all details do I need to furnish for the same? Where?

A. In the Exhibitors’ Console of TWC, we will be providing an option for you to provide all details required to raise an invoice to you, which will include:

1. Legal name of your firm
2. PAN # of your firm
3. GSTIN number (if you are covered under GST)
4. Mailing Address for Invoice
5. Contact Details of Recipient of Invoice
6. Phone # for Courier Agency to ensure delivery of invoice
7. Option to indicate that you want to avoid Dispatch of Printed Invoice and contribute to welfare of Nature

Q. What is the nature of service here? What will the Place of Supply be for this service?

A. From a GST perspective, this will be an Online service. Hence, the Place of Supply will be the state of your registered office on which we are to raise the invoice at. Also, There is NO GST for international exhibitors–where we are invoicing to an international address.