The end of the exhibition doesn’t mean the end of the trip. It’s always worth spending an extra day or two exploring the local leather and hardware market.
Talking with wholesalers and learning about their products, customers, and challenges is one of the best ways to build meaningful connections and uncover new opportunities. As a pleasant surprise, we even bumped into a shop owner we had met twice before, completely unexpected!
After visiting a number of shops and chatting with industry peers, we gained a better understanding of the local market. In Thailand and much of Southeast Asia (probably excluding VN?), the demand is primarily for mid- to lower-end hardware, which doesn’t overlap with our market positioning as much as we had initially expected.
That said, we were pleased to discover one or two businesses whose positioning aligns closely with ours. We’re excited about the potential to work together and look forward to building strong partnerships in the future.