Most exhibitors treat the Canton Fair as a lead-generation event. It is not. It is a shortlist event — and the shortlist is worthless without a disciplined follow-up.

Week 0: sort before you leave the hall

Tag every conversation into three buckets while it is fresh:

  • A — qualified: they asked about MOQ, exclusivity, delivery or payment terms.
  • B — interested: they took samples, asked for a catalogue, no commercial questions yet.
  • C — noise: booth-hoppers with no buying authority.

You will talk yourself into promoting people from C to A later. Do not. The cost of chasing a non-buyer is four follow-ups you should have spent on a real one.

Days 1–7: the bilingual first contact

Send within a week, in the language of the conversation, with three things attached:

  1. The specific products they asked about — not the full catalogue.
  2. A clear commercial frame: MOQ, lead time, Incoterms range.
  3. One question that requires an answer, so the thread has a next step.

Silence after the fair is usually a language problem, not a disinterest problem.

Days 8–30: qualify properly

For A-bucket contacts, run the checks before you invest:

  • Corporate verification — does the entity exist, is it active, who owns it.
  • Litigation and sanctions screening — one afternoon, saves a bad year.
  • Capacity question — what volume can they realistically move in year one?

This is where most teams skip ahead to contracts. It is also where deals die quietly six months later.

Days 31–60: the commercial document

Offer a distributor agreement that is bilingual and has:

  • Territory defined by geography and channel — the usual dispute.
  • Exclusivity tied to volume thresholds, not granted freely.
  • Payment security that matches the risk, not the relationship.
  • Warranty and returns procedure written into the document, not promised in the meeting.

Days 61–90: close or release

A deal that has not produced a signed term sheet, a sample order or a firm “no” in 90 days is not a deal. Move it to a quarterly nurture list and spend the time on the ones moving.

The metric that matters

Not cards collected. Not meetings held. Qualified partners progressing to a signed term sheet within 90 days. Count that, and the fair becomes a channel instead of an expense.

Figures and timelines are illustrative of a typical programme and are not a guarantee of results.