01/15/2009 10h35
Shoe sales grows despite the rain and lack of electricity
Valor Econômico - 01/15/2009
The only thing that did not work well in the 36
th Couromoda, the international shoe fair, was the roof. Yesterday, whereas there was water dripping from the roof that looked a lot like showers in the corridors of the Anhembi exhibition pavilion, in São Paulo, in the stands there were sales, up to 63% higher than in the last edition of the event, in January of 2008, being closed. "Clients started buying again, including foreigners, from Europe", said Paulo Schefer, president of the Association of the Shoe Industries of Ivoti (RS) and owner of the manufacturer of men's shoes West Coast and women's shoes Cravo & Canela. According to him, until yesterday, one day before the last day of the fair, the closed sales of West Coast for this first half of 2009 had already exceeded those of the previous year of the fair by 28% in volume. "Considering Cravo & Canela, we sold 63% more so far", said the businessman. The secret, according to him, is in the prices. "On the average, our lines cost 6% less than in the collection we presented a year ago. Márcio Utsch, CEO of Alpargatas adopted the same strategy. "At Alpargatas we lowered the price of several lines", he said, without specifying an average percentage. "In relation to Topper, for instance, we have tennis shoes starting at R$ 39 (US$ 16.9). Regarding Mizzuno, there are pairs at R$ 180 (US$ 78.3), whereas the market average is R$ 250 (US$ 108.7)." With that, according to Utsch, Alpargatas should end the fair with a business volume 20% above the one reached in 2008. In the stands of Arezzo and Schutz, the sales closed so far, with orders for the rest of the year, already amount to an income 10% greater than that of 2008. The expectation was also optimistic in the stand of Pampili. "The market has its stocks low, so the storeowners are buying a lot now", says Sérgio Andreazzi, business manager of the children shoe brand. João Carlos Wilbert, owner of Crysalis, a women's shoe brand, has the same opinion. In the stand of Bical, a children's shoe manufacturer, Silton Freire, export manager, negotiated discounts with his clients under the light provided by the cell phone screen. "Compared to the crisis outside, this is a party." Couromoda, which gathered 1,200 exhibitors, ends today.
