New Delhi, Nov 10 (KNN) Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has launched a virtual platform to exhibit garments made by Indian apparel exporters round the year where brands and buyers fr0m across the world can visit and place their orders.

“Holding international exhibitions has become difficult due to travel restrictions related to coronavirus. To overcome this, we have set up a virtual platform to exhibit our products 24x7, 365 days a year,” AEPC Chairman Dr A Sakthivel said launching the platform.

AEPC held a webinar on Monday to showcase the features of the virtual platform and to let the apparel exporter-members understand how they could exhibit their products and interact with visiting buyers and strike a deal in their respective stalls at the exhibition.

“We studied the virtual platforms of several international organisations and have come up with an improved version where buyers can have a near physical experience of the exhibition while navigating through the options in high resolution 360 degree avatars,” he added.

The platform offers free flowing two way communication between buyers and exhibitors through video call and WhatsApp chat facilities. Exhibitors have the real time flexibility to change their products on display and have the security feature of allowing only select buyers into their stalls. Buyers can collect products on their ‘Wishlist’ for discussion.

“Usually we have a set of buyers fr0m a set of countries with whom we do business. But with this virtual platform, we can get orders fr0m new buyers and fr0m new countries as it is open to everyone in the world. I expect at least 500 exporters to enroll for this virtual platform in the initial phase. We also have separate showrooms for medical textiles in the exhibition now that India is the second largest producer,” Dr Sakthivel said.

Exporters gave an enthusiastic response to the virtual platform with several suggesting that the platform with an annual membership of just Rs 5,000 will become an easy and economical alternative to the physical fairs that generally used to cost above Rs 2 crore for one international event where 50 Indian apparel exporters participated.

AEPC Export Promotion Chairman Sudhir Sekhri said, “We will also be able to have country specific monthly or fortnightly events in which we will open a sub-platform or a sub-group for these fairs. There will be separate membership for these events.”

Sekhri, instrumental in setting up the virtual platform, also said that the AEPC will write to Indian embassies abroad to contact local chambers of commerce and industries in various parts of the world for sourcing Indian apparels fr0m the virtual platform.