Posted on Aug 19, 2015 |

Kimpex Motorcycle and ATV/UTV Show

August 19, 2015

In May of this year I was invited to become a media contributor and product reviewer for Kimpex, one of Canada’s largest distributors of motorcycle and power sports parts and accessories.

I have written several pieces, both blog and product review, and that resulted in my being invited here, to the Kimpex Motorcycle and ATV/UTV Show at the Airport Hilton in Toronto.

My boss at work was accommodating – as usual – and James Budd, the man behind my website – advjoe.ca – was also available, so on Monday afternoon we hopped in my car and made our way to Toronto.

Arriving fairly late, we checked in and made our way to our rooms to get some sleep before the full day of training seminars that started at 0800 Tuesday morning.

At breakfast, James and I began to introduce ourselves and handed out some cards and branded Custom Water bottles doing the usual conference spiel, and then we went and introduced ourselves to Evens Sheehy, Team Leader of Web Marketing for Kimpex. In turn, Evens introduced us to Bruno-Pier, Kimpex’s Content Marketing Analyst and to his brother Maxime Sheehy who is Kimpex’s Media Specialist.

We were provided with our kits, name tags and schedules, signed the necessary paperwork, and then headed off to a day of training seminars. Kimpex has a network of 23 sales reps across Canada and their network includes about 5,000 dealers in Canada and approximately 1,000 in the US. Kimpex has 2 distributions centres in Canada (Drummondville and Calgary) and has recently opened one in Russia to support the fast-growing Russian market. This annual show is an opportunity for the reps to learn about any new products and updates to the Kimpex line for the coming season. This year, Macna, CKX, Milwaukee, LS2, Oxford, and KFI delivered training seminars.

With the seminars completed the trade show opened for a few hours after dinner and resumed again today. The show is attended by all of the Kimpex sales reps, the Kimpex distribution, and marketing teams, and by retail power sports dealers from across Canada. Trade shows are a wonderful opportunity to meet industry experts and therefore it is crucial that you have plenty of promotional material, from websites like https://www.printivity.com/products/color-copies/, packed with information to give out to any potential customers or clients. Brochures, posters, freebies, and flyers are all essential trade show must-haves. You can learn more about designing and printing your own promotional materials by heading to the website of a flyer maker such as MyCreativeShop. In addition to flyers, trade show vendors should also consider getting the name of their business out there by ensuring all employees are wearing clothing with the business name and logo on it. Not only does this make it easier for visitors to find a member of staff, but it also increases brand awareness and familiarity. This could lead to more sales and clients. Perhaps businesses should look into promotional embroidery companies that could put the logo on clothing. Above all, the show provides an opportunity to review a selection of current products, learn about updates to existing lines, and be introduced to new companies / product-lines being distributed by Kimpex.

This year about 30 manufacturers (listed below) and approximately 100 retail dealerships attended. Some of the largest dealerships in Canada were in attendance, such as: Royal Distributing, ADM Sport, Canada’s Motorcycle, Pro Cycle, GP Bikes, Prairie Recreation, Blackfoot Motorsports, and Motorhead Zone.

I want to mention here that although we truly had no real idea of what to expect (being our first closed, trades and media only show) – we were both suitably impressed. Kimpex put on a great show, gave us as much time as we asked for to answer questions, and generally, made us feel very welcome.

Kimpex Motorcyle and ATV/UTV Show Suppliers

Up Next . . .

Over the next week or so, I will post my impressions of some of the products we saw at the Kimpex Motorcycle and ATV/UTV Show . . . beginning with some motorcycle gear from the Netherlands – stay tuned!

Joe