Pondy Association Concludes IT expo Successfully

The IT Traders Association of Pondicherry recently organized the 15th edition of its IT expo titled ‘COMPEX- 2017′. It was a three-day event starting January 6th to 8th. The event housed close to 70 stalls showcasing laptops, desktops, networking and security products, CCTV cameras, printers and copiers, peripherals and other IT accessories.

The IT expo has always been the flagship event for the association in the UT is much appreciated and most expected by the local and customers from the vicinity.  Sridhar M, chairman of the expo tells that the trending sales of the expo were segments like Laptops, networking products and security solutions. “We had bookings for most stalls 20 days before the event and the response for this is always receptive. With our 20 years of excellence, our expo is always expected as many customers think that the expo will get them maximum price discounts”, he said. He also added that the customers might not get the touch-and-feel concept even in retail outlets and goodies were additional advantage for those who buy.

To avoid hassles and unnecessary competition, the organizers came up with the concept of ‘one vendor one stall’. There were three layers of stalls. The first two layers could only sell products of a single category by a particular vendor, only the bottom layer could set up multi branded stalls.

“That’s why, you see one product at one stall, and no other stall in the venue will have the same. This will mainly kill the filthy competition in the expo venue and putting an end to the undercutting of the product price”, said Sridhar who also stalled his products in the expo.

The Expo also saw a lot of cash-payments at the stalls. Aravindan S of Shamrock systems, one of the exhibitor said that people came with high-denomination notes and made pre-bookings with cash. Another trend which Aravindan recalls is that there were minimal discussions on price comparisons with their online counterparts.

“We find people coming back to stores and make cash transactions. There was also less number of customers who compared price online before coming to the shops. It is very evident that it is a level-playing field for everyone who is in the business,” he mentioned.

He added that many companies brought price-parity among the sellers and hence there is no need for the physical stores to worry. Also, many products are now available only with retailers and are not supposed to be sold in a market.

Post-demonization, many associations were gearing up for cash-less transactions. Likewise, the stalls in the expo were also anticipating that customers might opt for digital mode of payments. To facilitate this, almost all the stalls were provided with point-of-sale machines for debit and credit cards.

“For most of the stalls, bookings were done 20 days before the event and the response for this is always receptive. The expo has always received many footfalls and the customers believe that they will get maximum price discounts here,” he said, adding that the customers might not get the touch-and-feel experience even in the retail outlets and goodies were additional advantage for those who buy.

At the 3-day expo, the organizers held a meeting with all the key officials in various government offices in Puducherry. The members explained the activities of the association, their strength within the union territory and their network in Tamil Nadu IT association.

The team also emphasized on local procurement within the members of the association. The officials assured the association of involving them in projects like e-governance and e-waste management by appointing members as their authorized collection agents. The government will also set up a stall for e-recycling of waste highlighting its importance.