One day. Four halls. One clear English report.
I’m excited to introduce a new service on my website: on-site marketing surveys and English reports for overseas clients who cannot attend trade shows in China in person.
Recently, I completed a one-day marketing survey for a remote client in Poland — a company operating in the ceramic tile and construction materials sector. The assignment took place at ASE CHINA 2026 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC), across halls E1–E4. The client needed fast, reliable, on-the-ground intelligence to decide whether this exhibition is worth attending personally in the future.
This is exactly the kind of problem this new service solves.
Pain points: why a remote client needed local support
For many foreign companies, attending a trade show in China sounds attractive — but the reality can be expensive and inefficient.
- Long-distance travel is costly. Flying to China for a two- or three-day exhibition, then rushing back, consumes time, money and energy.
- It is hard to know if the show is relevant. A company may not know whether the exhibition truly matches its niche, or whether it is worth the trip.
- They need a trusted local person with strong English. Someone must visit the booths, speak with exhibitors, collect materials and turn everything into a clear English report.
- The brief can be very specific and demanding. This is not simply walking around and picking up catalogues.
Client’s brief: simple on paper, challenging in practice
The client’s requirements were strict. I was asked to identify Chinese manufacturers offering products specifically related to ceramic tile installation — and only those products.
The scope was limited to: tile adhesives, tile grouts, and waterproofing products/systems intended for ceramic tile installations. Everything else was excluded: general adhesives, industrial adhesives, automotive products, electronics, roofing systems, general wall coatings, packaging, tapes and other unrelated products.
The assignment was for one day only, September 16, 2026. In that single day, I had to locate the most relevant exhibition area, screen companies quickly and collect evidence. The target was approximately 25–30 screened companies, with only about 10–15 minutes per relevant company.
The sequence was clear: LOOK → ASK → VERIFY → COLLECT → MOVE ON.
For each potentially relevant company, I asked two key questions:
- Are you a manufacturer of tile adhesives, tile grouts or waterproofing products used for ceramic tile installation?
- Do these products have an EU Declaration of Performance (DoP) and CE marking for sale on the European market?
A verbal “yes, we have CE” was not enough. I had to visually verify the CE marking or relevant EU documentation — on packaging, labels, catalogues, technical documents or DoP files. If the company could not show evidence, I thanked them politely and move on.
For companies that passed the screening, I collected contact details, catalogues, business cards, WeChat/WhatsApp information, website addresses and photographs. The photos had to include the full booth and company name, booth number, relevant tile-related products, close-ups of CE marking where visible, and relevant catalogue or documentation pages.
The final report had to make one thing easy for the client: COMPANY → PRODUCTS → CE/DOCUMENTATION → CONTACT → PHOTOS.
Why this assignment was challenging
This was not a casual exhibition visit. It required:
- fast decision-making across four large halls,
- strict product screening,
- polite but efficient communication with exhibitors,
- visual verification of CE/DoP documents,
- organised photo and catalogue collection,
- accurate note-taking,
- and a clear English report delivered after the show.
The most important rule was simple but demanding: only manufacturers of tile adhesives, tile grouts and waterproofing products related to ceramic tile installation were relevant. Everything else had to be filtered out quickly.
The result: a practical English marketing survey report
The client received a structured English report that included the list of qualified companies, contact details, business cards, booth photos, product and CE documentation photos, relevant catalogues or catalogue photographs, short notes for each qualified company, an approximate total number of companies screened, and my overall impression of whether ASE CHINA contains a significant number of manufacturers relevant to ceramic tile installation.
This gave the client something far more useful than a pile of random brochures: evidence-based market intelligence to decide whether attending the exhibition in person makes business sense.
A new service for overseas clients
This project unlocked a new service I now offer:
On-site marketing surveys and English reports for remote clients.
If you are an overseas company asking:
- “Is this trade show relevant to my industry?”
- “Should we attend in person?”
- “Who are the real manufacturers?”
- “Do they have CE marking or EU documentation?”
- “Can someone local visit the exhibition and report back in English?”
…then this service is designed for you.
I can attend the exhibition on your behalf, screen exhibitors, verify key documents, collect contacts and catalogues, take organised photos, and deliver a clear English report — so you can make decisions without wasting time and money on a rushed trip to China.
If you need a reliable local researcher, interpreter and on-site marketing survey partner for your next trade show in China, please feel free to contact me.
