Paperworld 2018: high standards all round
February 9, 2018
Both manufacturers and retailers made a successful start to the new business season at the Paperworld, Creativeworld, Christmasworld and Floradecora trade fairs in Frankfurt am Main, according to Messe Frankfurt.
3,023 exhibitors from 69 countries made presentations to the national and international trade. 1,640 exhibitors from 66 countries took part in Paperworld.
With its extensive range of products and the inspiring complementary programme of events, Paperworld is the world’s biggest trade fair for the paper, office supplies and stationery sector. It focuses on future-oriented subjects, reveals new development opportunities and thus makes visitors and exhibitors fit for the coming business year.
“This positive setting is also reflected by the increased number of companies exhibiting at Paperworld. Altogether, 1,640 exhibitors from 66 countries made presentations during the four-day fair. With growth of eight percent, we have reversed the trend – and that in a challenging market”, said Julia Uherek, Group Show Director Consumer Goods, Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH. In comparison to 2017, there were more exhibitors from India, South Korea, Turkey, China, the United Kingdom and Russia.
According to the exhibitor poll, around two thirds of exhibitors were very pleased with the number of new contacts made and the standard of trade visitors. In addition to these criteria, many exhibitors gave a higher rating in terms of orders placed and target groups reached than a year ago. All in all, more than three quarters of exhibitors said they were very pleased with their results at Paperworld. For example, Sebastian Gutberlet, Sales & Marketing, Kaweco, said, “This has been a very good fair for us, even better than last year. On the first day, we had an incredible number of visitors. And this continued throughout the event with an extremely large number of appointments. We were particularly pleased with the customer standard and made numerous new contacts.”
This year’s Paperworld also did better than the previous year in terms of visitor numbers. 33,787 trade visitors, 11,072 from Germany and 22,715 from abroad gained inspiration from the latest trends and products. According to the visitor poll, 95 percent of trade visitors were satisfied or very satisfied with the range of products to be seen at Paperworld. This positive echo shows that the fair in Frankfurt is both an international market place for innovations and an indispensable business platform for the exchange of ideas and information on a personal plane. “Paperworld offers a huge assortment of product lines and a high level of internationality. The trade benefits from this, as it does from the concurrent product ranges to be seen at the Creativeworld and Christmasworld trade fairs. And then there are the events and special shows, in particular, the Future Office, which opens our eyes to the health at work and thus inspires the whole sector”, says Thomas Grothkopp of the German Home and Office Trade Association (Handelsverband Wohnen und Büro e.V. – HWB).
Striking at this year’s Paperworld: there were more trade visitors from outside Germany, especially from South Korea, Portugal, Bulgaria, China and Morocco, who came to Frankfurt to find innovations for the modern office and trends for private-oriented stationery and school requisites. All channels of distribution, from the classic retail trade, via the wholesale and import / export trade, to the mail-order and online trades, were represented. Many exhibitors remarked on the high visitor standard with numerous purchasing decision makers – three quarters of them are executives or come from top management. “Paperworld is the European trade fair we use to find new target groups and make new contacts, and to present our latest products to our best customers”, said Beth Wright, Chief Commercial Officer, Bi-Silque. After Germany, the majority of trade visitors came from Italy, the United Kingdom, France, the USA, China, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Turkey and Greece.
Paperworld has been bringing together the two main segments of office and stationery successfully at the same time and place for many years. Moreover, the areas of visitor interest indicate that the demand for the two product segments is equally high. Particularly popular are office paper and shipping materials (39 percent), office and desk accessories (30 percent), writing and drawing utensils (29 percent) and organisational aids, calendars and note books (26 percent). Furthermore, buyers also took more time to study the products on show: the average length of time spent at the fair has risen to two or even three days.
In addition to its many exhibitors and their diverse products and technological innovations, Paperworld 2018 also included the presentation of awards and a seminar program, sponsored and hosted by The Recycler. The Recycler Awards celebrated various achievements across the industry and The Recycler Live Seminars featured talks by high-profile figures from the office imaging world, who gave in-depth insights into current and future trends and developments.
General attitudes to the event were overwhelmingly positive.
“This show is a very special show,” commented Ninestar’s Marketing Director Helena Huang when asked to describe her highlights of the last four days, “our European partners and customers were one big family together again.”
Next year, the consumer-goods fairs will be held as usual around the last Saturday in January, with the next Paperworld taking place from 26 to 29 January 2019.
Categories : Around the Industry
Tags : Frankfurt Messe Frankfurt Paperworld 2018 Trade Shows
