Expo Riva Schuh continues to be the fair of reference for volume footwear in Europe and around the world. This is not a randomly achieved record, but rather is the fruit of the great efforts made to monitor markets and the new professional figures characterizing them. At the fair, there are representatives of both large-scale chains and small retail stores, those arriving from e-commerce, and even e-tailers: buyers are just as diversified in their origins as the exhibiting companies.
This is a public that is most interested in the Asian, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, and Pakistani producers, which have chosen the Riva del Garda fair as their sole platform for interacting with the European market.
At this edition of the fair, we spoke also of omnichannel strategies and integration between online and offline moments as the key to success for modern businesses: a good practice also implemented by Expo Riva Schuh, which opens up new business opportunities for everyone. The offline moment is represented by the physical fair itself, where face-to-face interaction is necessary, and where it is possible to touch products to determine their quality… The online moment, instead, allows us to profile buyers and exhibitors and, thanks to the information received, open ourselves up to new markets. By basing ourselves on this premise, we have decided to launch our Expo Riva Schuh Around the World road show in South Africa: one of the most interesting countries of the great emerging market of Africa, an interesting continent not only from a production standpoint, but also in terms of buyers. Moreover, it is also the protagonist of an important trend of outsourcing by Chinese businesses, which here find the possibility to produce at lower costs than in their own country.
The Expo Riva Schuh Around the World project will then move on to other countries, starting with Russia. Already at this edition of the fair we hosted seven firms from Saint Petersburg and in the future we count on expanding in this market. We will then visit the Bulgarian footwear association, another emerging market for production.OInstead, in terms of buyers, we intend to reinforce the market of Northern Europe: we will organize a meeting through the ICE Agency in Stockholm to present Expo Riva Schuh to potential buyers.