Taking orders at a trade show sounds simple until the booth gets busy.
A customer walks up and starts looking at products. They ask a few questions, decide what they want, and then the order comes quickly: “Give me three of this one, one of that one, and five of those.”
At the same time, another customer is waiting.
The salesperson now has to keep the conversation going while finding each product in the system, adding the right quantity, and making sure the order is correct. If every product has to be searched manually, the salesperson can end up spending more time looking at the screen than talking to the customer.
This is where barcode scanning can make sense.
The aim is to keep the trade event from evolving into a technical nightmare, and rather help to recognize the good which is needed by the customer, thus allowing the salesperson to process the order without having to stop repeatedly to check the list of products.
The problem is not really the order. It is the speed of the conversation.
A normal sales order gives you some breathing room. You can sit at your desk, search for a product, check the details, make a change, and move on. At a trade show, you don’t always have that luxury.
Customers are making decisions while they are standing at the booth. They may point to a product rather than tell you its exact name. They may want several items. They may change a quantity halfway through the conversation.
The salesperson has to keep up. That is where manual order entry starts to get in the way.When a salesperson needs to type the name of the product, view the list of the searched items in order to ensure that he picked the right product, add the quantity, and continue with the procedure for other product, then it takes too much time to place a simple order.
And when several customers are waiting, those extra seconds matter. There is also the accuracy problem.
Products can have similar names. Different sizes, colors, styles, or variations can be easy to confuse when someone is working quickly. A customer may ask for five units, but the salesperson accidentally enters four. A product may be selected incorrectly because there was not enough time to double-check it.
So the real requirement is not just faster order entry.
It is being able to keep up with the customer without making the order harder to get right.
This is where a barcode can help
If the product already has a barcode, there is no reason the salesperson should always have to find it by typing its name. They can scan it. The barcode gives the system something specific to look for, which can make product identification much more straightforward than searching through a long product list. This is particularly useful when a business carries a lot of products or when product names are not easy to remember.
For example, imagine the customer picks up a product and says:
“I’ll take three of these.”
The salesperson scans the barcode, identifies the product, enters three, and continues the conversation.
Then the customer points to another product.
“I’ll take one of these too.”
The salesperson scans that product, enters one, and adds it to the same order.
There is still a normal sales order behind the process. The salesperson still needs to enter the information required for the order. But one repetitive part of the jobfinding the product becomes much easier.
That is really where barcode scanning earns its place.
The scanner should help the salesperson, not become another thing to manage
This is an important distinction. It would be easy to build a process around the scanner simply because the scanner is available. But that misses the actual problem. The salesperson does not go to a trade show because they want to scan barcodes. They go there to talk to customers and take orders.
The technology should stay in the background as much as possible. A good process should let the salesperson move naturally from the conversation to the order:
Customer chooses the product → salesperson scans it → product is identified → quantity is entered → next product is added.
There should not be a long series of extra steps between those actions.
And the process needs to work when the salesperson is under pressure. It is one thing to demonstrate a barcode scan when sitting quietly at a desk. It is another thing when customers are waiting, the salesperson is answering questions, and the next order is already starting.
That is why the actual workflow matters more than simply having “barcode scanning” listed as an ERP feature.
The order still has to be complete
There is another side to this that is easy to miss. Making product entry faster is useful, but the order still needs all the information the business needs after the trade show.
The salesperson may need to capture:
- Customer information
- Products and quantities
- Pricing
- Unit of measure
- Shipping details
- Payment terms
- Purchase order information
- Taxes
- Expected delivery information
The exact information will depend on how the business handles its orders, but the point is the same: the barcode is only one part of the process.
You do not want a fast product-entry process that leaves someone in the office with a half-complete order to fix later. That simply moves the work somewhere else.
The better approach is to make product identification quicker while still creating a proper sales order that the rest of the business can use.
How Versa Cloud ERP fits into this
This is where Versa Cloud ERP can fit naturally into the process.
Versa supports barcode-based product identification. A business can configure the product field used for barcode scanning so that the barcode can be used to look up the product. Product identifiers can also be maintained for products, including identifiers such as UPC and EAN.
So, when a salesperson has a product in front of them at a trade show, the barcode can be used to help identify that product instead of relying entirely on a manual search.
Once the product is identified, the salesperson can add it to the sales order and enter the quantity.
If the customer wants another product, they can continue adding products to that order.
That matters because trade show orders are not always one-product orders. A customer may want three products, six products, or even more, with a different quantity for each one.
Versa’s sales order process supports multiple line items, so the order can contain the different products and quantities the customer requested, along with the other information needed for the order.
Depending on the system setup, inventory information can also be available while entering sales-order items. That gives the salesperson another useful piece of information while working with the customer.
None of this means that scanning a barcode automatically creates a complete order with no input from the salesperson. It does not need to.
The useful part is much simpler: the salesperson can use the barcode to identify the product quickly and then continue building the order in the same system.
Think about what happens after the customer leaves
This is probably the part that matters most to the business as a whole. The trade show ends, but the orders do not. Someone still needs to process them.
If the salesperson wrote everything down during the event and plans to enter it later, there is another job waiting when everyone gets back. Someone has to read the notes, find the products again, enter the quantities, and make sure the information was captured correctly.
That creates extra work. It also creates another opportunity for something to be entered incorrectly.
When the order is captured in the ERP as it is being taken, the business already has the order information in the system. The next teams do not have to start from a handwritten note or a separate spreadsheet.
The order can then continue through the normal process for fulfillment and the other work that needs to happen after the sale.
That is why this is bigger than just making the salesperson’s job easier at the booth. The real benefit is keeping the information connected from the moment the customer places the order.
Before the trade show, test the actual situation
One thing I would not skip is testing the process before the event. Do not just test whether the scanner works. Test the situation the salesperson is actually going to face.
Have someone stand in front of the salesperson and say:
“I want three of these.”
Then:
“Add one of those.”
Then:
“Actually, make that two.”
Then add another product.
See what happens.
Can the salesperson find the products without stopping the conversation? Can they change a quantity easily? Can they tell what has already been added? Can they complete the order without having to jump between several screens?
These small things become much more noticeable when the trade show is busy.
The best workflow is not necessarily the one with the most features. It is the one the salesperson can actually use without thinking about every step.
What to look for when choosing an ERP for trade show orders
If fast trade show order entry is important to your business, barcode scanning is worth looking at, but it should not be the only question. You also want to understand how the complete order process works.
Ask whether the system can:
- Use the barcode identifiers your products already have.
- Find products through barcode scanning.
- Add several products to one sales order.
- Handle different quantities for different products.
- Capture the customer and order information you need.
- Provide useful inventory information during order entry.
- Keep the completed order in the same system used for the next steps.
Most importantly, ask to see your actual use case. Do not just ask someone to show you that a barcode can be scanned.
Give them the situation your salespeople deal with. Show them an order where the customer says, “Three of this, one of that, and five of those.”
That will tell you much more about whether the workflow is actually going to help.
Making a busy trade show a little easier
There is no magic feature that makes trade show order entry effortless. The salesperson still has to talk to the customer, understand what they want, confirm the order, and make sure the details are right. But they should not have to fight with the product search at the same time.
Barcode scanning can take some of that unnecessary work out of the process. Instead of stopping to search for every product, the salesperson can use the barcode to identify the item and continue building the order.
With Versa Cloud ERP, barcode-based product identification can be used alongside the sales order process, where products, quantities, customer information, and other order details can be captured together.
That is the part worth focusing on.
Not the scanner itself.
Not another feature on an ERP checklist.
The real question is whether the salesperson can stand at a busy trade show, hear a customer say, “I’ll take three of these and one of those,” and enter the order without the system getting in the way.
If the answer is yes, then barcode scanning is doing what it is supposed to do: helping the salesperson keep up with the customer instead of making the customer wait.
Keep Trade Show Orders Moving
When customers are ready to order, your sales team should be able to capture the details without slowing down the conversation. With barcode-based product identification and sales order management, Versa Cloud ERP can help make product lookup and order entry easier during busy events.
Explore Versa Cloud ERP to see how product, customer, and order information can work together in one system. You can also learn more about barcode scanning and inventory management and how they can support faster order workflows.
Want to see how this could work for your trade show process? Request a Versa Cloud ERP Demo and walk through the workflow with our team.
