GHA’s February Home and Giving Trade Fair certainly picked a winner with their guest presenter, colour expert Leatrice Eiseman.
 
Leatrice’s incitefull free presentations in to colour and its impact were well attended throughout the trade fair event. Leatrice also presented a heads up into forthcoming trends in colour pallets for the season to come.

After a brief question time at the end, retailers were able to take away a handout with a range of eight forecasted colour combination pallets to suit different situations and marketing strategies. A nice addition to an import gift fair.

Leatrice is a colour specialist often referred to as “America’s colour guru.” Eiseman’s colour expertise is recognised globally, especially as a key consultant to Pantone, Inc.

She runs the Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training and is also executive director of the Pantone Color Institute and edits their magazine on the Pantone website. Leatrice is also the author of six published books about colours.

Leatrice has helped many companies as a colour consultant, from start-ups to large companies to make an educated choice of colour for their product development, logos and branding, internet sites, packaging, point of purchase, and interior/exterior design and other applications where colour choice is important to the overall success of the undertaking.

The February GHA Home and Giving Fair at Homebush is over and was a great relief to many exhibitors who were expecting retailers to be well down with their orders. Feedback from a range of these importer/wholesalers is that they all had a reasonably good trade fair and mostly down only about 10% in sales on last year which was much better than expected.

Established retailers have a healthy but cautious outlook for the year ahead with reasonably good employment statistics still apparent compared to the total doom and gloom forecast by the mainstream media.

Most exhibitors say they had less new customers at the gift fair, but that established customers ordered as much or more than last year.

The February Home and Giving gift Fair starts this weekend and is a must for retailers wanting to get the new designs that give them the edge over their competitors and attract shoppers back into their stores.

The Home and Giving gift Fair at Olympic Park Homebush will offer their customary free parking and seating, however they have also added  their new themed chill-out zones throughout the fair with stylish lounges for all Associate Members of GHA.

Another great feature that the GHA have added to their fairs is the online interactive planner at  homeandgiving.com which lets retailers prepare and plan their day mapping out their visits to exhibitors with ease.

A highlight of this trade fair will certainly be Leatrice Eiseman, USA’s leading colour expert and a director of the Pantone Color Institute, who will be giving daily presentations at the Fair.

Free one-on-one consultations will also be available with visual merchandisers on improving your store. (photos of your shop will help you to enjoy an invaluable, customised review).

The Home and Giving gift fair Floor plans have been re-designed for 2009 with an exhilaratingly fresh mix of exhibitors promised. 

Home and Giving have also arranged some Home and Giving trade fair exhibitor participants at Homebush to provide some fantastic discounts for you with valuable fair-only offers ranging from free shipping to huge discounts and even free stock with purchase!  Serious retailer will never miss this event.