Empty stockrooms and so far a very successful year for retail provided the shoe fair duo GDS – International Event for Shoes & Accessories und GLOBAL SHOES – leading trade show for sourcing ending on Sunday three exciting days of business, information and communication.
With a total of some 28,600 visitors (7,000 of whom also attended GLOBAL SHOES) coming from 79 countries both events ended on last year's levels. Exhibitors reported a significant increase in quality and the best of ordering moods amongst buyers – who included representatives from such renowned shoe retail firms as Betsy Palmer (Netherlands), Comfort One Shoes (USA), Görtz (Germany), GUM (Russia), Humanic (Austria), Hush Puppies (USA), Intermax (Poland), Jones Bootmaker (UK), KaDeWe (Germany), Megatrade (Ukraine), Skoringen (Denmark), Steinmetz (France), Stiefelkönig (Austria), Torfs (Belgium), Tretter (Germany) and Zalando (Germany).
Over one in two visitors came here from abroad and this time more buyers from the Benelux, Scandinavia, Great Britain and the Baltic states attended GDS and GLOBAL SHOES. Exhibitors also reported a larger proportion of non-European buyers as well as a slight shift in buyers towards large-scale retail (+ 5% in the group of firms generating over Euro 5 m turnover per year). There was also a noticeable sense of the very high quality of visitors at the fair (80% from top management). Nine out of ten visitors once again gave the shoe fair duo a very high score in their overall rating.
“Retailers were in the best of moods over the past few days. Their stockrooms are empty so they now need to catch up,” said Dr. Gerhard Bachmeier, Managing Director of Högl Shoe Fashion GmbH, summing up the fair. “All major names were here. We took considerably more orders and are looking forward to a strong rise in order volume. The very good quality of dealers was conspicuous. We also saw a perfectly organised GDS. It could not have been better.”
Kirstin Deutelmoser, Director of GDS and GLOBAL SHOES, also viewed the last three days in a similar way: “The economic mood is considerably better than even just one year ago. You could hear and feel this in the halls of the fair. Increased visitor quality, the ordering mood and the rise again in the number of buyers coming to Düsseldorf from the Baltic, Scandinavia and the Benelux underline the role of GDS as a leading specialist shoe fair for the central and northern European market.”
And Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, CEO of the fair organising company Messe Düsseldorf, added: “The international shoe sector once again felt very at home at the Düsseldorf shoe fairs. The mood in the halls showed that GDS and GLOBAL SHOES are a reliable and solid marketplace for both trade and industry.”
For Marvin Bernstein, Vice President International Sales of the US label Skechers, the GDS remains an “excellent platform. As Skechers has successfully grown over the past few years so too havewe developed our business at GDS. We took many orders especially for our Shape-ups. The fair was very successful for us. We are already looking forward to the next GDS in March.”
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