Indian Shoe Bazaar - Fairs: 96.GDS, 40000 people attended the world's largest shoe fair

96th GDS - International Shoe fair - stable in turbulent times

40,000 people attended the world's largest shoe fair

Business success viewed in a positive light

"A stable market in turbulent times", this is how Wilhelm Niedergöker, managing director of the Messe Düsseldorf appropriately summarized the course of the GDS from 18 until 21 September. "1,520 exhibitors over an area of 80,000 square meters and more than 40,000 specialist visitors - and thus approx. 1,000 visitors more than were present at the March event! - demonstrate to us that the GDS is a must for the industry in these difficult times. In this way the process of stabilization, which already could be seen in the spring has continued. That is an outstanding result although the number of German specialist shoe traders has, for instance, fallen by 6.2 per cent since the year 2000. And with around 27,000 visitors from abroad from a total of 78 countries we have double the international presence of the industry's second most important trade fair. If you take a sales market of the importance of France, for instance, 1550 French purchasers came to the GDS, ensuring that more French purchasers attended this trade fair than any other specialist shoe trade fair outside of France."

The market has changed, this became very clear at the GDS, which is a mirror image of the market. Both the exhibitor as well as the visitor structure is changing. Traditional strongholds of shoe production in Europe such as Italy, Spain and Germany are under great pressure - shoe production throughout Europe fell by 8.9 per cent, in Italy alone there was a drop in the levels of shoe production of 10.7 per cent.*

A correspondingly lower number of exhibitors and visitors from Italy came to the GDS, in their stead there was an increasing number of companies from growth markets such as Brazil and Turkey on the supplier side. Of the more than 20 per cent new visitors at the GDS strong delegations from Russia and Asia, above all from Japan, as well as the United States (amongst others from the NSRA - National Shoe Retailers' Association) were particularly prominent. The greatest contingents on the part of the foreign visitors came from the Benelux countries with approx. 3,850 purchasers, Great Britain (2,200), France and Scandinavia (1,550) each, Italy (1,450), Spain and North America (1,400 each).

The exhibitors were very impressed by the quality of the visitors - 85 per cent of the companies awarded marks of very good to satisfactory for the visitors. This is not surprising as the decision making powers of the visitors were exceptionally high. 73% of the GDS visitors stated that they had the key say or at least a say in the purchasing decisions, an additional 15 per cent of the visitors had an advisory role in the decision making process. Bernd Hummel, managing director of Kangaroos from Pirna/Germany stated the following on this issue: "The quality of the visitors was very good. Above all the guests from abroad came to our stand in Hall 13 - all in all we have held intensive discussions with approx. 1,750 visitors on the four days of the trade fair.

GDS played the main part during the awarding of the orders

GDS is the information, communication and order platform number of the world's shoe industry. This was also confirmed by the visitor survey: 67 per cent of the visitors awarded marks of 1 to 2 for the "trend information", in addition the GDS is also the most important event with respect to the awarding of orders for more than half the visitors.

The exhibitors also expressed themselves accordingly: Two thirds of all the companies viewed their business success at the trade fair in a positive light! This assessment was noticeably better than was the case at the March event, people unanimously deemed the GDS as a provider of impulses for the international shoe industry. Holger Schmitz of Chérie (Italy) stated: We had already concluded the number of business deals that we had anticipated for the entire period within the first two days. And Carlos Suarez, General Manager of Unisa (Spain), got to the heart of the matter when he said: "It was the best trade fair that we have ever had!"

More than half of the exhibitors stated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the number of specific business deals that they had concluded during the GDS-. More than two thirds of the companies reported that they had conducted promising discussions for the preparation of sales business deals and 53 per cent were impressed by the impressive number of new business contacts that they were able to establish during the days of the trade fair. A staggering 76% of the GDS exhibitors stated that they had positive expectations with respect to the post-trade fair business.

Fashion trend for the year 2004: As colourful as it gets

Which trends will be the hallmarks of the next season? The collections and the Fashion Shows of the DSI (Das Schuhinstitut) that went down extremely well left no-one in any doubt about this: "As colourful as it gets" is the motto for the next summer, bright colours are making a comeback, in addition it will be a very revealing year, the foot will be almost completely laid bare. In addition to the refined wraparound effects made of leather, taffeta, cord or raffia for ankles and calves, sport is in as a fashionable contrast, even for everyday clothing. Sneakers, sports sandals and boxer boots are worn by those people who like to dress in comfort and still want to be trendy.

The specialist visitors heaped great praise on the plazas that have been realised for the first time. These now forums in the halls 4,6 and 12 demonstrate entertaining and creative fashion trends and offer the retailers additional orientation aids so that they can stage shoe fashion in a more interesting light. A lot of the GDS visitors were very enthusiastic about the information that was offered there, the inspiration they gained but also the opportunities to relax during the trade fair. The Plaza concept will also be pursued at the next events.

The Internet portal of the GDS has long since established itself as a well used information platform. Half a million Internet pages have been called up since the May event, that represents 30 per cent more than in the previous year. And even following the conclusion of the trade fair the GDS provides the surfers with useful and entertaining information from the shoe world. Thus there are 700 direct links to the homepages of the exhibitors, 850 company portraits and approximately 1500 pictures of the new collections. And those people who were not able to view all 48 shop window collections of the "Walk of Sale" in the Fashion Lounge can make up for this by viewing them under http://www.gds-online.com/walkofsale. Videos from the Fashion Show put the finishing touches to these impressions.

One of the numerous highlights of the GDS was the awarding of the EFMA prize, the European Footwear Marketing Award. The Roman retailer received the award in front of approximately 500 guests from the CEDDEC* President Dott. Massimo Donda received the coveted award for her outstanding marketing concept.

The details of the next GDS trade fairs in Düsseldorf:
11. 11 March until 14 March 2004 and 16 until 19 September 2004

few snap shots from 96th GDS - International Shoe Fair, Sep. 2003 (click on picture to enlarge)

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