Toolmakers "meet the buyers" event scored highly

Aston Villa Football Stadium was the venue for the first Toolmakers' Meet the Buyers event in which a panel of 30 companies sought suppliers for a variety of tooling and mouldmaking jobs.

Aston Villa Football Stadium was the venue for the first Toolmakers' Meet the Buyers event on 26 May, arranged by Business to Business Exhibitions.

in association with the GTMA.

A panel of buyers from 30 major companies, including such household names as Pirelli and GlaxoSmithKline, were looking for products and services including: tooling for blow moulding, compressing forming, injection and extrusion moulding and vacuum forming, as well as gravity die cast tooling, jigs and fixtures, press and stamp tooling, cutting and calibration tools and tool holding solutions.

The event offered delegates guaranteed face-to-face meetings with buyers, all of whom were actively looking to find potential new tooling suppliers able to provide a timely, high quality, cost-competitive product.

In addition to the day itself, a networking dinner was held on the previous evening, allowing suppliers to liaise and network with the key decision makers in a less formal environment.

The event proved to be extremely successful with 62 delegates from 57 suppliers attending, many of whom managed to meet with as many as 15 buyers during the course of the day.

Keith Evans, Toolroom Director, PP Injection Moulds, expressed the general view of suppliers when he commented; "This provided us with a very good chance to meet the people who matter and we came away with three or four really good leads.

Altogether the event was very good value and the venue was brilliant." Buyers too were enthusiastic, for example representatives from Earlex, with a tooling requirement of GBP 3-4m/annum, had 33 supplier appointments of whom they expected to follow up 60%.

Similarly Sertec was delighted with the level and commitment of the suppliers present and expected to have further discussions with at least half of the people they had met at the event.

Many suppliers mentioned how impressed they were with the level of contacts they were able to make, "real buyers at the sharp end, who are genuinely and actively looking for new suppliers," which was far better than they had experienced at other events.

With such positive feedback from buyers and suppliers alike the GTMA is already planning a future event.

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