Those two things just don't go together, do they? Oh but they do, and it's called a Vendor Show.
I would love to work in industry just long enough to find out the profitability details on vendor shows. The economics of these things, especially the small ones that happen near-weekly at any large biomedical institution, have always baffled me.
Swarms of hungry graduate students and postdocs and techs descend like locusts on whatever free food is available. In the mornings you'll get coffee, bagels, doughnuts; lunchtime means pizza; afternoons there are sugar bombs in the shape of cookies or even ice cream.
The vast majority of attendees have not even a passing interest in the product being sold. I have literally never heard someone say, "Hey, I was thinking about getting a Promega enzyme, so I think I'll hit up their vendor show tomorrow for more information." In fact if I were to hear such a thing, I would fall off my seat laughing. Hello, Captain Internet?
I understand that food is, comparatively speaking, cheap. Perhaps a small vendor show, of the weekly bagel and coffee variety, costs ~$100. Pizza lunch, $150.
How much do the sales reps earn? They always show up in pairs, like Mormons, and their time probably costs the company what, another $200, taking into account travel etc? There's also the advertising flyer drop ("Free pizza tomorrow! Downstairs, outside the conference room!"). So we're only looking at an outlay of $300-400 plus some shiny brochures.
Still, I cannot wrap my head around how this junket is profitable. Sure, if just one attendee decides to buy their PCR machine, costs are recouped. But who decides on lab purchases based on the quality (or mere presence) of free chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches?
Of course, visibility is part of advertising too. Even if no one picks up your brochures (for use as anything but a brownie-plate, that is), you've still implanted the VWR brand name in their little skulls. In this sense, vendor shows are just like the adverts on the back page of Nature, only cheaper and probably further-reaching (who looks at the physical journal any longer?)
Nonetheless, I remain mystified that these biomedical companies regularly survey their entire operation, ask themselves, "What can we do to be a leader in the field?" and conclude, "Give away free pizza."
I would be happier with improved navigation on their websites, myself.
15 years ago
6 comments:
I go and, when I'm feeling optimistic, shop for things I'll want when I have my own lab someday.
When I'm feeling pessimistic, I look to see which companies are still in business, and think about which ones I might be able to stand working for.
I've gotten discounts by chumming with salespeople, not to mention free samples and demos of equipment I otherwise wouldn't have known existed. I don't know about you, but if somebody builds a better widget, I don't want to see a picture on a website. I want to see one in person.
And for a lot of bigger-ticket items, you can't get prices online anyway. You have to get a quote. You get a good quote by negotiating with salesfolk.
Depressingly, giving away pizza in this case is just for keeping the munchkins happy for a few minutes so the grownups can get some work done.
Even more depressingly, scientists generally won't even leave the lab (or the computer, in your case) unless there's free food involved.
Free food is a waste of time when it comes to me. I laugh in the face of free food!
Seriously, most vendors I go to with free food run out within 5 minutes. It's just a ploy, a scam, and when I feel scammed, I get angry. That's when those PCR tables start going down.
I go to vendor events when I'm actually interested in seeing what they have (i.e. not often). When we were in the market for new pipets, I really appreciated having them right there in front of me and discussing pros and cons with the salespeople.
This is fascinating. I have literally never heard anyone say that they were going to a vendor show for anything but food. Everyone even reports back on whether it's easy to get the free food or whether you have to give them your name and email. What's the difference between our labs??
It's all about getting your email address, other contact details, and figuring out what you work on. The benefits then extend waaaay past the one-off vendor show. Even if you never buy anything (despite repeated advertising emails of course!), the company gets a better idea of who everyone is and what research they're doing, to help guide product development.
I've often wondered the same thing, and this is only the second time I have heard of someone going to a vendor show for info. about products. We like to go to the shows for the free lab accessories like floaties shaped like feet or whatever other random stuff we can find.
I know some people who go to vendor shows for the vendor-related stuff and some that go for the food...it seems to depend on whether you actually use anything that the vendors who have these things sell, which is generally molecular biology, genetics, etc. oriented as opposed to ephys. Those of us who rarely need to buy anything for our labs other than salts and animals are not likely to attend these things for the merchandise (and when we do need to buy other things we contact the companies, not the other way around). I actually can't think of a local vendor show that has ever advertised having any vendors associated with ephys and the sales reps don't troll the labs like the other ones do either.
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