Nextrade: Messe Frankfurt goes 365

Will the B-to-B online marketplace make trade shows obsolete? Certainly not in the next few years. On the contrary: as a 365-day hub for communication and the ordering process between suppliers and retailers, it will strengthen the trade fair. Messe Frankfurt Managing Director Detlef Braun says: "As at our trade fairs, we bring supply and demand together perfectly here".

Messe Frankfurt is building the digital marketplace Nextrade together with nmedia. This makes Messe Frankfurt one of the first very large trade fair venues or trade fair organizers to consistently rely on a 365-day platform. If trade fairs lag behind their industries with their digital strategy, then year-round projects (trade fairs 365) are doomed to fail.

Messe Frankfurt is now one of the first European trade fair venues to get serious with a 365-day platform for its exhibitors. In doing so, it is showing the trade how a kind of Amazon can function for suppliers and buyers in the business-to-business sector.

What does B:to:B mean in the consumer goods sector? It means that the Nextrade marketplace is geared to sales between the exhibitors at Ambiente and their trade buyers. Specialists also speak of B-to-B-to-C, since the consumer is ultimately the end user, but retailers have a decisive position in the sales and purchasing process. B-to-C could one day become the Nextrade extension of B-to-B.

Nextrade will donate online communication and online shopping 365 days a year, not only when the fair is on. Suppliers place their products on the Nextrade webshop, retailers communicate and order here throughout the year. We have presented it several times, a trade show organizer who wants to build a 365-day marketplace needs the know-how of a tech company. This is the reason why Messe Frankfurt is now cooperating with nmedia and has taken over shares of nmedia.

Messe Frankfurt is the largest trade fair venue in the world in terms of sales.