For the past week, they have mounted a slick marketing campaign on TV and radio. Fast-talking Colombians speaking in thickly accented English, hawking products that usually fall in the category “as seen on TV”.

Now, after almost a week of peddling their wares at the

Jamaica Conference Centre, exhibitors at the Colombian Trade Show are hoping they will reach an agreement with some of the island’s distribution companies to market the wide array of items they have on show.

The expo ends tomorrow.

“We have had conversation with some people in Jamaica to distribute here,” Gerardo Florez, one of the exhibitors told the Observer.

He added, however, that no agreement had yet been reached with any distribution companies.

“Talks are continuing,” Florez said.

The show opened last Friday and offers a wide assortment of household products including floor mops, blenders, glass cutters, non-stick frying pans, window cleaners, as well as weight loss and massaging devices. Listening to the Colombians’ spiel, the items are sensational – unusual, at the very least and very, very good.

Most of the items on display, Florez said, were made in Columbia and he vouched for their quality. Attempts to ascertain if any of the items being sold had ever appeared on the Bureau of Standards’ radar were unsuccessful as the Bureau did not return calls made by the Observer. There was also no indication of what recourse purchasers have if the products fall apart after the exhibitors have left the island in search of the next fertile market.

According to Florez, they have staged a number of trade shows in the Caribbean over the last 12 months. Exhibitors, he said, are aggressively trying to find new markets in these countries as well and they plan to branch out even further.

“We have so far been to St Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago and we will be going to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica and the other islands soon,” Florez explained.

There are also plans, he added, to stage another exhibition in Jamaica. That show, he said, will highlight a different line of products.

When the Observer visited the show earlier this week, scores of persons were being treated to various demonstrations, while others were making purchases.

The mops and the non-stick frying pans appeared to be very popular.

“I am impressed with most of the things here, especially the frying pans and the mops,” remarked one middle-aged woman who was watching an egg being prepared in one of the frying pans.

The egg was fried without the use of cooking oil and later effortlessly removed from the pan without leaving any residue.

At the end of that display, an obviously impressed Joan Cunningham quickly purchased three frying pans for $2,000.

“I have been having difficulty getting a good frying pan, so I will be trying out these,” she said. “The other products are good too, but those I can do without right now.”