(PRESS RELEASE) STAMFORD, CT — Officials from the American Pet Products Association (APPA) and Pet Industry Distributors Association (PIDA) have announced attendance and participation figures of buyers and exhibitors from Global Pet Expo Digital Access. Over the course of three days, the online-only premier industry event reported 282 exhibiting companies with 1,976 unique exhibitor users and 3,884 active buyers on the platform, including 1,046 first time buyers.
“After an extremely challenging year, we were encouraged by the number of participants in this year’s online-only event, and by how engaged and active they were,” said Andy Darmohraj, EVP and COO of APPA. “We even saw an increase in international attendance, with a total of 80 countries taking part this year. This reinforces what the data is already telling us: the future is bright for our industry, and we are already looking forward to seeing everyone in-person at the 2022 Global Pet Expo.”
During the event, participants networked, previewed new products from the 282 exhibitors, and learned about the historic milestone the pet industry hit during the State of the Industry keynote from Steve King, APPA President & CEO and Celeste Powers, President of PIDA. Top tier media outlets including FOX Business, The New York Times, Yahoo! Finance and multiple pet/vet trade publications covered the news that sales exceeded $100 billion for the first time in the history of the national pet industry.
Although attendees were unable to gather in person this year, they still had the opportunity to explore business-focused sessions and learn about industry trends during the Global Learning Series sessions. Half of the sessions received more than 100 unique views, and the two keynote speeches had a combined total of 1,500 unique clicks.
“Our educational, business-focused sessions are traditionally one of the most beneficial aspects of Global Pet Expo because they give attendees exclusive access to experts that can speak to topics ranging from industry trends and opportunities to advice on how to improve their businesses and create a more inclusive workplace environment,” said Celeste Powers, president of PIDA. “We are pleased so many attendees took full advantage of this year’s sessions.”
Additional attendee engagement metrics on the online event platform included:
- 1.3 million unique pageviews
- 110,000 profile views
- 34,600 network connections made
- 18,600 online showroom visits
- 16,000 products favorited
- 4,500 social posts via the community feed
- 15,000 messages sent within the platform
- 200 average sales leads per exhibitor
Global Pet Expo 2022 will take place in person at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., on March 23-25, 2022. The event is open to independent retailers, distributors, mass-market buyers, media and other qualified professionals. It is not open to the general public. For more information, visit globalpetexpo.org.