With keynote speakers from successful retail specialists such as Candylicious and Epicenter, Retail Seminar 2011 ended on a high note on the 9th November. At the end of the seminar, there was also a career fair featuring jobs opportunities from various companies like Triumph, Wing Tai, Watsons and many others.
Pre-event
The retail seminar was held to cater to the interests of our Year 1 to 3 students who intend to pursue a career in the retail industry. The event saw about 200 students. Prior to the event, EMRS assisted to consolidate the list of participants and also made calls to them to ensure that they turn up for the seminar. Besides that, we also prepared signages to facilitate the registration process. As signages are important to the registration process, we had to create signages that are eye-catching and clear to the participants to ensure no confusion will arise.
There are also goodie bags given in the retail seminar. Goodie bags comprising of candies, hand sanitizer, tidbits, wet tissue, eye mask as well as face wash. Packing of goodie bags can be a challenge as there must be planning of allocation on who and how the goodie bags should be packed. Planning is essential to get all the goodie bags packed in an effective and efficient way. We packed a total of 349 goodie bags of which 4 of them were incomplete due to shortage of some products. Helpers were seated in a circular position to pack the goodie bags which proved to be a faster way to complete the job. Even though packing of goodie bags sounds like an easy task, it is not at all as it tests us how to plan and organize effectively and efficiently.
During event
Actual event day begins with the setting-up of the vendors’ booths and registration counters. Some vendors came down with their exquisite and colorful posters and fixtures to display their products as well as the job opportunities they have to offer to the students.
The logistics team experienced problem in transporting the fixtures to the event venue as it is located at a different level from the fixtures room. Hence, more caution was needed when we were transporting the fixtures to the event venue.
Another problem encountered was the transporting of goodie bag. These goodie bags cannot be transported just on the trolley as it is inefficient use of space and they will fall of the trolley. Thus we need to pack them into carton boxes to transport them efficiently and safely.
As registration was one of the key aspects of the retail seminar, the EMRS team took into consideration on the number of participants and hence decided to set up two registration counters with two staff manning each booth to ensure that the registration process is smooth and not overcrowding. EMRS also assisted with the ushering of the participants into the auditorium and the keynote speakers up on stage. At the end of the seminar, the EMRS had to stand-by at the foyer to distribute the goodie bags as well as to collect the question slips issued to the participants at the registration. These collection slips also serve as lucky draws slips thus the goodies bag ushers have to collect all the question slips promptly and ensure that the slips are passed on to the emcee on time for the lucky draw.
The entire retail seminar ended with everything in place! All the seminar participants received informative and useful tips and knowledge from our speakers. Most importantly EMRS team fostered positive future working relationship with out vendors. . EMRS has gained valuable insights from the organization of this seminar. Manpower allocation was one of the key skills that we have picked up. Knowing the where and how’s of allocating manpower made the seminar a successful one. Learning how to organize and plan out the flow of registration and goodies bag distribution was also a key skill that we have picked up.
