The 2009 Expo was held Saturday and Sunday on the Saint John’s College Campus. It was renamed the expo marketplace and this year it got a facelift. 7News went searching for the best deals.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This was the SJC Campus on Saturday – a bustling hub of commercial activity with live music, food, and hundreds of Belizeans standing in long lines to get “topped up” and searching the Expo Marketplace for deals.
Keith Swift,
“What brought you to the Expo?”
Woman #1,
“Well for the promotions and what they had to offer and the low prices and to see different people and advertisements of what our community is offering.”
Woman #2,
“I came shopping for a little groceries, mainly deals because companies like Castillo and Brodies are all here so you get once in a while deals.”
Woman #3,
“I’m just looking to see what they are offering.”
And those offerings were across the board – from cell phones to autographed CDs and even clothing.
Lynette Canto, PR Executive – BTL
“We have double and triple up so any customer that comes in and wants to put credit on their phone they will have the option of either doubling or tripling the amount of credit they do.”
Ian Courtenay, PR Officer – Smart
“We have a whole host of deals we are offering. First starting with our gimme dalla promotions; we are having double up, triple up, quadruple up.”
Trudy Joseph, Angelus
“We have our tambola section which is our retail section. We decided we will not going to sell at this place, we are just going to allow people to get a chance to win fabulous prizes and all you have to do is pay 50 cents and
they get a chance to win fabulous prizes that we have available.”
Carlo Marin, Grace Kennedy Limited
“Today we have our jalapenos peppers, our Grace Jalapenos Vienna, our powder and liquid coconut milk, we have pretty much items on sale all reduced.”
But the hottest items were cell phones which were selling for as little as $50.
Kenrick Richards, Cellular Plus
“Right now our special is the water proof phone as I just demonstrated. It is waterproofed for 30 minutes under water and ten meters.”
Kiran, Cellular World
“Here at Cellular World we are starting at $49. We know it is the hard times so we have phones at $49, $55, $69, $89 – basically you can
get a decent phone with camera and everything for $99 at this expo.”
Keith Swift,
“What is the cheapest phone I can buy here?”
Kenrick Richards,
“$49, that is the Motorola F3 which is this one here. We have phones for $49, $69, $99, and up.”
And while cheap phones were the hottest, the quickest seller was toilet paper.
Keith Swift,
“How quick are these toilet paper selling?”
Andrea McKoy, Caribbean Paper Company
“Well as you can see the crowd slowed down a bit but if you give us 5 more minutes the crowd will be here again so it is going, going gone. It is a sale so if you could get something cheaper why not. You won’t pick up your bale too?”
One vendor that stood out is Maureen Navarrete. She is a clothing designer
who made her debut at the expo. These purses and dresses are all her creations.
Maureen Navarette, HIS Design
“I basically designed and sew every single clothing and the purses to match and the hand bags, the leather handbags and as you can see, I am also an artist; I make collages and passport covers and everything is on sale right now. The truth is I’ve always wanted to be a designer and I didn’t know I had talent. Throughout high school I didn’t know and I just believed God has blest me with this talent. This talent is from beyond because nobody hasn’t taught me how to sew these clothing and I am just blest.”
And while all these businesses are showing robust sales, they all say that the Expo weekend is more about giving back to their costumes.
Lynette Canto,
“It is about boosting sales yes but more importantly it is about giving back to our customers.”
Kiran,
“For us here at the expo we just really just try to make sales to cover expenses. This is really giving back to our customers. We put phones at slashed prices, we were on very small margins just to take out expenses and pay staff, pay the Chamber for the booth but beside that we are not really here to sell, we are here to push the name, push the service, and of course give back to the people who support us year in and year out."
Carlo Marin,
“The expo is not so much to meet targets, it is pretty much to give back.”
Today the Chamber of Commerce and Industry was unable to tell us how many persons visited this year’s expo because they are still tabulating the figure. One record that was set was a record long blackout. Power went for three and a half hours on Saturday pushing the already unbearable heat to hellish temperatures. BEL says the outage was caused by a burnt service line on the compound.
