How Agricultural Product Exhibitions Can Achieve Integrated Online and Offline Development
With the rapid development of internet technology, e-commerce is increasingly becoming an important form of economic operation. The exhibition service industry is a barometer of industrial development, and the application of internet technology in the exhibition industry has important practical significance. The State Council's "Several Opinions on Further Promoting the Reform and Development of the Exhibition Industry" clearly states: “Hold online virtual exhibitions to form a new model of organic online-offline integration. Promote the application of cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and mobile internet in the exhibition industry.” This article intends to conduct an in-depth analysis from three aspects: the current situation of agricultural product exhibitions, agricultural product exhibitions and “Internet Plus,” and suggestions and reflections.
The Current Situation of Agricultural Product Exhibitions
(1) Constraints of Traditional Physical Exhibitions
Traditional exhibitions are mainly offline exhibitions. While the exhibition industry is developing rapidly, there are also some constraining factors. 1. Enormous marketing costs. 2. Obvious time and space constraints. 3. Difficulties in on-site supervision. 4. Overly complicated approval procedures. 5. Audiences' cognition of products and purchasing orientation are influenced by the visual display of the exhibition.
(2) Characteristics and Dilemmas of Agricultural Product Exhibitions. 1. Agricultural product exhibitions are affected by regional and seasonal characteristics, and the exhibition period is relatively concentrated. 2. The industry entry threshold is low, and agricultural product exhibitions are seriously homogenized. 3. The attributes of agricultural products determine the universality of the audience, which objectively results in more general visitors than professional visitors, restricting the effectiveness of exhibitors' exchanges and negotiations.
Using “Internet Plus” Technology to Achieve Integrated Online and Offline Development of Agricultural Product Exhibitions
(1) The Connotation and Advantages of Online Exhibitions
Online exhibitions, also known as virtual exhibitions, refer to the use of internet technology, where participants only need to click a webpage link to join through an IE browser, roam the virtual environment, watch real-time live online seminars, visit exhibition booths, watch product demonstrations, and chat online with conference organizers, keynote speakers, and exhibitors.
Online exhibitions have advantages such as round-the-clock availability, broad user reach, low cost, and flexible scalability, and are an application of internet technology in the exhibition industry. Agricultural product exhibitions should also follow the trend of the times, using technologies such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and mobile internet to achieve the organic combination of traditional agricultural product exhibitions and “Internet Plus,” and realize integrated online and offline exhibition development.
(2) Systematic Development Approach for Agricultural Product Exhibitions and “Internet Plus”
1. Build an Online Exhibition Hall
The online exhibition hall will mainly serve exhibition organizers, exhibition participants, professional clients, visitors, and staff, providing intelligent service information, service business processing, and service pushes tailored to different groups. The online exhibition hall is a supplement to and extension of the business value of physical exhibition venues. It uses information technology to digitally transform exhibition hall operations, forming a one-stop online service center. At the same time, it builds an online exhibition hall to achieve more humanized interaction and provide visitors with a more vivid exhibition experience. It can also digitize existing exhibition operations, achieve full-process networked management and digital storage, provide basic data for big data analysis and decision-making, and simultaneously enhance management levels and development potential through digital means.
2. Use Mobile Internet Technology to Develop and Promote Exhibitions
APP
The exhibition APP uses the mobile internet as its carrier and leverages open platform resources to achieve O2O-based exhibition services, enhancing service efficiency and value. Its functions include: real-time venue positioning and direction guidance; through a unified communication platform, organizers, service providers, and exhibitors can publish information in a timely manner and push targeted information; a more interactive exhibition map; real-time exhibition interaction; linking to the online exhibition hall system, and purchasing agricultural products online through the APP, etc.
3. WeChat Public Account, Unified User Authentication, Communication Platform. The WeChat public account makes fan classification more diverse, and through backend user grouping and regional control, precise message pushing can be achieved.
The exhibition WeChat public platform will combine with a unified identity authentication platform to enable one account to access the online exhibition hall, mobile APP, and WeChat public platform. Using the unified communication platform, organizers and service providers can establish an interactive marketing platform, relying on WeChat to penetrate personal real-world social circles, create a marketing channel, attract more potential users, and become an important component of the entire internet information platform. This platform will integrate and connect to unified authentication systems such as QQ and Weibo, forming a user database and providing basic data for future big data business.
4. Online Payment, Logistics Delivery, or Offline Pickup
Users can make online reservations and purchase needed agricultural products on the online exhibition hall, micro exhibition hall, and APP system platform, make online payments and transaction settlements through third-party payment systems such as Alipay, WeChat, and UnionPay, and use third-party logistics for delivery. Merchants can also adopt the method of online pre-purchase of agricultural products through the online exhibition hall and QR code scanning pickup at offline exhibition booths for sales. Payment and pickup can also be completed by scanning a QR code with a mobile phone within the booth.
5. Big Data Management for Agricultural Product Exhibitions, Promoting Quality Improvement of Agricultural Products; Feeding Back and Guiding Production, Promoting Farmers' Income Growth
The inevitable trend of “Internet Plus” exhibitions is to build an online platform, merging cloud computing and mobile internet technology with offline exhibitions into one, directing offline exhibition visitors to the online space, enabling them to generate sustained attention and interaction, and also providing a foundation for organizers and exhibitors to conduct data mining and analysis. Data such as visitors' behavioral characteristics during visits and the quantity, amount, and after-sales evaluations of online agricultural product sales will become the core of agricultural product exhibitions. The accumulation and analysis of data can influence the invitations for the next agricultural product exhibition and sustainably improve the exhibition's return on investment.
Information collection, as the foundation for providing data, can achieve information feedback to the decision-making level. Big data can coordinate statistical analysis of specialized agricultural product data, adjust and coordinate specialized agricultural product industries, promote balance in production and sales structure, and promote intensive management of agricultural services.
6. Internet New Media
New media has characteristics such as interactivity and immediacy, mass volume and sharing, multimedia and hypertext, and personalization and communitization. When e-commerce websites use new media methods for marketing, the most important thing is for enterprises to achieve interaction with users, listen to users' voices, solve users' difficulties, and provide feedback.
Several Suggestions on Promoting the Connection Between Physical Agricultural Product Exhibitions and “Internet Plus”
(1) Offline agricultural product exhibitions and online agricultural product exhibitions should complement each other and develop in an integrated manner. The exhibition, display, and sales of agricultural products in traditional venues have advantages that online exhibitions cannot match, and still have strong vitality. With the internet as the carrier, the traditional marketing model is the foundation, and the “Internet Plus” model is innovation. The combination of online and offline agricultural product exhibitions provides a new model for promoting agricultural product circulation and promoting farmers' income growth. Only when the two complement each other and advance together can the effect of 1+1 being greater than 2 be achieved and the industry's development be promoted. It is necessary to actively guide the integrated development of online and offline agricultural product exhibitions, and neither should be neglected.
(2) Accelerate the pace of streamlining administration and delegating power, and adjust the approval system to a filing system in due course. Complicated approval procedures hinder the vigorous development of the agricultural product exhibition industry, and it is imperative to advance the streamlining of administration, delegation of power, and supervision according to law in due course. In accordance with the principle of territorial management, after fulfilling legal procedures, the administrative approval authority for exhibitions that can be delegated should gradually be delegated to the provincial-level commerce authorities of the host location, and the approval system should be adjusted to a filing system in due course, with pilot implementation in the agricultural product exhibition industry first. Use modern information technologies such as the internet to implement online filing and approval, and improve the efficiency and convenience of administrative licensing.
(3) Establish and improve standards and a credit system for the agricultural product exhibition industry. Accelerate the establishment of a credit system for the exhibition industry covering exhibition venues, exhibition organizing institutions, and participating enterprises, and promote the application of credit services and products. Establish information disclosure, credit archives, joint disciplinary mechanisms for dishonesty, and a blacklist system, promote the sharing and disclosure of regulatory information among departments, and achieve credit classification supervision. Actively use information technology methods such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things to explore and implement the new model of “Internet Plus supervision,” forming a new pattern of government supervision, enterprise self-governance, industry self-discipline, and social oversight. At the same time, accelerate the construction of the agricultural product standardization system, improve the quality and safety traceability system, and ensure food safety.
(4) Strengthen the talent system construction and guide the cultivation of interdisciplinary talents in internet and agricultural exhibitions. Encourage vocational colleges and undergraduate universities to set up professional courses according to market demand, and cultivate skilled, applied, and interdisciplinary IT talents that meet the development needs of the new exhibition industry. Encourage intermediary agencies and industry associations to jointly cultivate and train exhibition professionals with relevant colleges and training institutions. Explore and form a classified management mechanism for exhibition industry practitioners, study measures and methods to promote the construction of a professional exhibition talent team, and comprehensively improve the overall level of practitioners.
(5) Scientifically define the public welfare and competitive nature of exhibition venues and exhibitions. 1. Learn from the German government's policy support for the Munich exhibition industry, increase investment in the construction of exhibition venues, support the construction of infrastructure around venues, establish a developed road and rail transit network, and guide venues to adopt a model combining operating exhibitions and self-organized exhibitions. 2. Agricultural product exhibitions and online platforms still face problems such as insufficient capital investment, a shortage of professional talent, and difficulty in guaranteeing agricultural product quality. In view of the current situation where agricultural product exhibitions are still in a weak position, promote the reform of the exhibition hall management system and innovation of operating mechanisms, and formulate open, transparent, and non-discriminatory rules for venue use. 3. Further emphasize the positive role of public welfare agricultural product exhibitions and trade fairs in agricultural product display and exchange, trade cooperation, brand building, guiding production, and promoting income growth, and provide corresponding policy support. On the basis of building public welfare exhibition and sales platforms, encourage exhibition hall operation and management entities to improve operating efficiency through forms such as brand output, management output, and capital output, and increase the continuity and intensity of support for public welfare venues.
(6) Increase support for related industries such as agricultural product cold chains, logistics, and warehousing. Actively develop industrial clusters led by agricultural product exhibition enterprises, supported by transportation, logistics, and tourism, and supported by planning, advertising, and printing, enhance the collaborative capacity of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, drive the development and growth of agricultural product exhibition service enterprises, promote farmers' income growth, and accelerate agricultural development.
Shanghai Agricultural Exhibition Hall is advancing in an orderly manner the systematic project of agricultural product exhibitions and “Internet Plus” in accordance with Shanghai's requirements for creating a national modern agriculture demonstration zone as a whole, focusing on building a comprehensive service platform integrating agricultural product display, trading, and comprehensive services, cooperating with third-party services, and building an agricultural product information service, testing, warehousing, and distribution system, striving to open up a new world for innovating agricultural product circulation methods, developing modern agriculture, promoting farmers' income growth, and helping farmers enter the market.