Online Trade Expo Fixed For February
The first ever online trade show dubbed 'Online Ghana Trade Expo' to offer Ghanaian businesses the platform to exhibit their products and services to the rest of the world is to be held in Accra in February, this year.
The one-month trade show, which was launched in Accra yesterday is being put together by the Ghana Association of Home Based Entrepreneurs (GAHBE), an e-market service provider.
Launching the Expo, the Chief Executive Officer of the GAHBE, Mr Abel Duncan, said the expo was open to businesses in sectors of the economy.
The show comes at a time when businesses across the world have found the Internet as a major tool to reach millions of potential customers across the length and breadth of the world through online sites.
According to him, 'the phenomenal advantage of the Internet was its level playing ground' where businesses, no matter their size could compete for the same customers.
He said all businesses needed to do was to register, create an account, then upload the information and graphics they wanted their potential customers to see.
Mr Duncan said the online Ghana Trade Expo was set to empower entrepreneurs to showcase their businesses to millions of people world-wide, maximise their profitability potential, and enable them to gauge how many people were showing interest in their product and from which part of the world these people were from.
Lack of exposure, he said had been an issue for many businesses and that was partly to blame for low sales recorded by many businesses.
The Online Ghana Trade Expo, therefore, looks to overcome this by utilising the benefits of the Internet. As the Internet is seen as a convenient and global source of information for people all around the world, it's popularity is constantly growing.
In Ghana alone, it has recorded a 4,223 per cent growth with a rise from 30,000 Internet users in 2000 to 1,297,000 in 2010.
In Africa, the usage of Internet has grown at a rate of 2,357 per cent in the last ten years. Because of this growing popularity, entrepreneurs opting to trade in the online expo will expose their businesses daily to a possible 1.3 million people locally, and 1.9 billion people at the global level.
This simplicity, Mr Duncan indicated, was a major factor in trading online, especially when considering the logistical issues that come with regular off-line trade expos, which had been removed.