The deals and steals of Expo Belize Marketplace 2009
The Expo Belize Marketplace 2009 was held at the St. John’s Landivar Gymnasium over the weekend. The two days were a scorcher but the heat did not stop the crowd from looking for bargains amongst the one hundred plus businesses who signed up for the event. In case you didn’t make it out to the gym, here are some highlights of the expo.
Jose Sanchez
“How important is the expo towards the advertisement of these businesses?”
Kim Aikman, Belize Chamber of Commerce
“Well, Jose, as you know, the history of the Expo, it started out with the businesses making a request that they needed a forum to get their products out there so that people can see what they’re offering. So it’s extremely important and it has grown from one row of booths to a hundred and thirty-seven booths. As you can see, it has evolved from just a display into a marketplace where people come and shop and do bargaining and it’s I would say one of the core shows for businesses in Belize.”
Lisa Gonzalez, Sr. Marketing Officer, Smart
“Smart has some awesome deals. We have some unbelievable deals for all our customers. For the first time, we’re having the quadruple, which is double your double. Our competition is offering the triple up. Well, we went one big step ahead and offered double your double. So we have double up triple up and quadruple up.”
Maureen Navarrete, Entrepreneur, His Glory
“I’ve been sewing for the past three years now. I design my own clothes and sow them and I also do art collages. As you can see, we have Belize clothes, especially for the September celebrations and to me I’m getting a lot of feedback from the crowd from since yesterday so I’m really proud of that.”
Kyla Morales, Entrepreneur, Belizean Jigsaw Puzzles
“I’ll be manufacturing Belizean jigsaw puzzles. For the first time we will have Belizean jigsaw puzzles. So the puzzles will display images of Belize.”
Jose Sanchez
“This is something new for you. What type of images are you bringing out?”
Kyla Morales
“Images like Altun Ha, all the Maya ruins, all the poisonous snakes of Belize. Anything that you can imagine Belizean, that’s what my jigsaw puzzles will display.”
Kayla Grant, Investment Officer, Beltraide
“We have a bunch of different products. We have condiments from Seawell, we have wine, milk from Western Dairies, we even have cologne. So what we’re doing is just we’re sort of campaigning and letting the public know that free services that we offer to these small businesses; like we help them with marketing and setting standards and we also provide services for international investors. If they want to come in, we help them start up their business and get everything going.”
Monique August, Manager, Daves Furniture World
“Dave’s is offering ten to up to fifty percent off their items; household, beds, kitchen wares. Everything you name it we have it.”
Jose Sanchez
“You’re getting a lot of crowd, a lot of sales?”
Monique August
“Yes, we’ve been getting a lot of sales today, compared to yesterday. It was a bit slow yesterday but today we are picking up.”
Bassem Chakaroun, Manager, Gadgets
“We have games from WII, Playstation3, Playstation 2. We have the largest selection in Belize of original games. Also I have systems and I have computers from Dell, Toshiba, Acer.”
Jose Sanchez
“Usually games are very expensive. How much do you sell them for?”
Bassem Chakaroun
“They start from thirty-nine nine and they go up, it depends. Everything original though.”
Oryn Swaso, representative, Angelus Press
“I’m selling tambola for Angelus Press. As you can see, we have products from a wide range of companies. The new one people most want is the friction pen that erases with friction. Fifty cents a chance sir.”
The two-day affair attracted thousands of visitors and despite some hitches with electricity and the boiling temperatures, the expo went off relatively well.
