With a click of a mouse, this season’s retail orders will be placed before anyone enters onto the tradeshow floor. With a pure vision to create a seamless retail sales environment Matt Odom, CEO of ExchangeFrame, and Dan Caplin, Director of Operations of Trafik Tradeshow, have created the first ever virtual apparel tradeshow event set to go live with over 300 of the world’s best fashion designers on August 13^th, 2007. Trafik Tradeshow is held in South Beach, Miami, from August 15^th through 17^th, 2007.

Fashion retailers and buyers have been slow to embrace technology for fear of losing that “personal touch” that links the buyer to the brand. However, with the retail industry growing at rates too fast for pen and paper and technology advancing at lightning speed, it only makes sense to evolve.

Trafik Tradeshow, an innovative market show that has merged fashion with technology, refuses to miss the fast track or get lost in the conventional chaos tradeshows can create. Acknowledging the tremendous potential of online opportunities, Trafik Tradeshow is offering the first online platform and free Wi-Fi for designers, buyers, and sales teams to communicate and share information like never before on the ExchangeFrame system.

ExchangeFrame allows the brand, retail buyer, showroom, and tradeshow to do what they do best…their business. The virtual showroom will not replace the actual tradeshow, but rather enhance it and make the whole experience more organized, productive, and enjoyable for all involved. Time is saved from data-entry, faxing, and attempting to connect through annotated formats, and technology therefore effectively refocuses business energy onto the relationship.

For the first time, retailers will have the opportunity to discover and close more business online. ExchangeFrame allows the buyers to go online to peruse and make notes about exhibiting brands three days before the show. Buyers may print show floor maps with their targeted brands highlighted for quick reference, making an emerging brand’s booth placement a moot issue.

Research shows that companies who leverage an online sales channel with their buyers should see a spike in sales on the order of 10% to 20%. ExchangeFrame provides that online sales channel to all Trafik exhibitors.

The sales boost is a reflection of smarter shopping. Using ExchangeFrame, retail buyers are able to set “open to buy” budgets that will monitor spending and freely explore a network of designers and showrooms in a safe and efficient online environment. Buyers can search on the most granular level for specific styles, prices, and date availability. Three days prior to the convention, buyers can put their orders in and then confirm their impeccable taste when they arrive at the booth, all without ever physically touching a purchase order form.

Beyond displaying and processing orders virtually, Trafik will use ExchangeFrame for buyer registration and exhibitor processing as well. Dan Caplin, Director of Operations for Trafik Tradeshow, claims that ExchangeFrame’s web services “improved our internal efficiencies by 60% at our January show” and expects even more impressive numbers for the upcoming show in August.

In expressing his enthusiasm to improve not only Trafik, but also the fashion community’s future success in the age of technology, James Costa, Trafik Tradeshow’s Show Director, says it best in stating, “ExchangeFrame is a tool that all tradeshows, retailers, brands, and showrooms should use. It’s an incredible resource and we look forward to working with ExchangeFrame on all future shows! We are freeing up valuable time for our show attendees, allowing them to take a moment to enjoy Miami’s spectacular ocean view.”

Trafik Tradeshow and ExchangeFrame are setting out to revolutionize the way the fashion community does business by creating a more harmonious and efficient work environment for the retail industry’s pros. To make this digitized process more comfortable for Trafik Tradeshow attendees, this service will be offered at no extra fee, and online tutorials will be available on www.Exchangeframe.com and www.YouTube.com.

ExchangeFrame is a joint venture between Predictix (www.predictix.com), whose clients include Walmart and BestBuy, and some of the principal founders of Trafik Tradeshow. A hybrid of some of the brightest minds in retail software and experts from the apparel industry has come together and created a cutting-edge, web-based wholesale order management system for designers, retailers, showrooms, and buyers. (www.exchangeframe.com)

Trafik Tradeshow is the nation’s “destination show.” This independent contemporary fashion tradeshow is inspired by the evolution of the boutique shopping experience throughout the region and worldwide. The show was created to fully service the retail market, while creating a comfortable environment that boasts beauty, ease of use, and tremendous retail sales opportunities. (www.trafiktradeshow.com)