Nadezhda Bezruchenkova works as a senior shift salesperson at the Moscow CORSOCOMO store on Komsomolsky Prospekt. She is one of the best salespeople on the network and a very empathetic conversationalist. These two qualities are inextricably linked with each other, because the main professional rule of Nadezhda is easily formulated in one word: "attention". Nadezhda told Shoes Report about what other principles she is guided by in her favorite work.
Hope, how did you start your career at CORSOCOMO?
- I came to work in this store on Komsomolsky Prospect as a sales assistant in May 2011 of the year when it was first opened. At the interview I was informed that the staff was recruiting to a new store, and I was very happy because it is always nice to come to the team that was just assembled. Before that, I worked in the restaurant business, and the decision to switch to retail was spontaneous. I went for interviews, and at CORSOCOMO I was intrigued by the fact that here from the first minute of meeting they expect something more from you. Our company really appreciates people, sellers, and they here, in turn, expect us to be polite, loyal and flexible to customers. And it is very captivating. You immediately understand that you’re not just selling shoes. In addition, our company is developing together with us: in each collection, our comments and wishes of customers regarding the completeness, height of the heel, and convenience are taken into account - this is very important for customers in our store. We are looking forward to each new collection, and it always turns out to be even better than the previous one. This time, customers even requested that the spring-summer collection arrive as soon as possible. And now, a few days after its receipt, it already makes up almost half of the sales in relation to the autumn-winter collection.
Wow! This is despite the fact that discounts are now available for the autumn-winter collection ... By the way, what features of the work appear during the sales period?
- Our people are already accustomed to selling, so the flow of buyers is becoming larger, and the load on sellers is higher. And if, when a new collection arrives, customers roughly know what they need, then during the sale they simply react to a good offer, and we already find out in the process of communication what they would like. At the trainings, we are just taught to find out not the need, but the buyer’s motive - what the person came with. For example, women often come to the store for a sense of novelty. Although many of our regular customers need comfort, quality, reliability. These are mainly people from the age of 40 to 60 years who do not travel to shopping centers. At first they looked at our store, found out what our brand was, bought shoes with us, came and told us what it was like to wear.
What is the difference between your customers?
- Frunzenskaya is a very good area, there are many famous people who do not spend time shopping in Moscow and buy everything in Europe. They are spoiled by European service, but they are not spoiled by him here at all. And when we offer them coffee, they are very surprised because they are not used to such a service in Moscow.
Do you offer coffee only to celebrities or to everyone else too?
- Yes, almost everyone! It’s in a shopping center that people don’t have time, but with us they can sit down and relax. We offer them to undress, treat with branded chocolate, pour coffee, let the men flip through the magazines, we spend the children in the toilet, if necessary.
Please tell us more about men. What kind of buyers are they?
- Men as clients are very attentive, and more than women are interested in production. They ask, “how is this done?”, “Why is a leather sole better?”, They are interested in production technologies. Pay attention to the little things, so working with them takes longer. But if a woman can forget, leave, then remember, return, then men are more constant and thorough. They first come for classics, and then look at our other lines of men's shoes and often become regular customers.
How do you work with women?
- In dealing with women, the main secrets are attention and willingness to talk, and not only about shoes. One day a very upset customer came to us who had just parted with a young man. I don’t remember if she bought something then, but we talked sincerely and then she returned to thank for participating. Later, when we had an action with gifts, we purposefully phoned her and she gladly came, leaving with the purchase. A woman often just needs to pay attention, she needs to be met comfortably, have a human conversation, and not communicate with her for the sole purpose of selling something.
What are some difficult clients?
- Most often, complex clients are women with a certain status and psychologically closed: “she knows what she wants, all by herself, by herself.” But this, too, can be overcome, because all people need communication, it just takes two minutes for someone to talk, and twenty for someone. The main thing is not to be imposed, but to show that you are nearby. Well, then you can already talk!
What are you talking to customers about?
- About everything! The one who came for the first time is told about the brand and products. If a person is already familiar with our brand, we coordinate it on designer capsules. In the process of trying to find out how and with what he wears shoes. We work very successfully with our company magazines: there are beautiful images that we show as an example of the combination of shoes and clothes. Finally, people stopped thinking that the bag should fit the shoes, and the scarf and lipstick must be matched to the tone.
Remember your first big sale?
- We have big sales very often - I say this, comparing with other stores. People here are ready to give a lot of money with one check, and often buy a bag and two or three pairs of shoes at a time. We are used to it and we always help each other to pack purchases, bring them to the car, leave the boxes with us if "the husband sees, he will curse." And specifically speaking about the first big sale ... I remember one man bought goods at 40 000 rubles from us. He bought shoes for his daughter and wife, they both had 37 shoe sizes, and we helped him choose with the whole shift. Usually we give discount cards for a discount from 5% to 20%, but on that day we called the marketing department and asked for an exception to give him a card for 30% as a sign of our gratitude. Now he is our regular customer, and when he comes from abroad - he spends a lot of time there - he often comes to us.
Does your marketing department always meet you so easily?
- In general, we are in very close interaction with them. The office is nearby, and if they want to try something - layout, design, promotion - they test it on our store to understand how the innovation will work. From this point of view, we are always in the center of events.
What bright, exciting work events do you recall?
- We have a lot of exciting days. For example, in May, in honor of the brand’s birthday, we arrange discounts and promotions, treat customers with champagne, and we always design the store very nicely. This year, torches were installed at the entrance, and music speakers were brought out onto the street. It was a real holiday. But, of course, CORSOCOMO closed shows, which bring together all the office staff and the best sellers, are of the greatest thrill. We meet brand designers there, stars perform for us - for the last time, for example, Mitya Fomin, Julia Savicheva, Sveta Svetikova, Anastasia Makeeva, Ekaterina Volkova came. This is very cool: we feel part of a big company.
I noticed that you always talk about yourself in the plural, on behalf of all the other sellers, even when it comes to your own achievements ...
- I do not try to highlight myself. Yes, I am the best seller, and I have been praised for this more than once, but I do not think that this is my personal merit. Of course, there are some individual points. For example, when I went to work part-time at our store in the Domodedovsky shopping center, one man wrote in a review book that I was packing packages unusually beautifully, and he really enjoyed watching the process. That was nice.
By what criteria are you considered the best seller?
- By sales and seasonal assessment of staff. We have a gradation of sellers in 1, 2 and 3 categories, and I am a seller of 1 categories from the very first certification. And I became the shift supervisor a year after I came to work as a sales assistant. Here is a very real career growth, it all depends on you. Every half year, in addition to trainings, we undergo a seasonal assessment, and any seller always has the opportunity to send an application to the personnel department if he believes he is ready for something more. The company often holds contests for open vacancies both in network stores and in the office. If an employee has a desire to become a senior shift seller, he will need to undergo training and attestation for compliance with the position, confirm that he is ready. There is no such thing that you are thrown into work without preparation, and you live in constant stress because of this. It is generally calmer here than in the restaurant business, where I used to work, but at the same time I have to communicate with people a lot, just like I like.
Who did you study for?
- I have a law degree. I wanted to go to criminal law, but dad persuaded to civil. This is paper work, I quickly got bored, and when my friends opened a restaurant in my third year and called me a manager there, I realized that I did not want to be a lawyer. I finished my studies so as not to upset my parents. Now, after the restaurant business, I have increased stress resistance, I can smooth out any conflict situation.
What do you do in your free time? By the way, does it happen to you?
- Of course, the 2 / 2 schedule allows you to relax. I’m still volunteering for part-time jobs because I don’t get tired. In my free time I go to yoga, meet friends. I love my cat very much - I have a sphynx, problematic, I have to babysit it with my child. I go to discos, go on vacation. In general, I rest as well as all people.
Interviewed by Olga Sevastyanova
| Please rate the article |
Offline vs. Marketplaces: How to Survive and Win in 2026?
In Russia, e-commerce's share has grown from 5% in 2019 to nearly 23% in 2024 and continues to grow, with e-commerce market analysts predicting it will reach over 30% by 2029. Offline retail, meanwhile, can not only survive but also grow by 20-30% annually if it stops offering clothes on hangers and shoes on shelves and starts selling unique experiences. We discuss this topic with Shoes Report regular contributor Elena Vinogradova, an expert in fashion buying and sales and the author of the Fashion Business Blog, a blog for retailers and buyers.
The main colors of women's shoes for the fall-winter 2026/27 season
Fashion continues to embrace the language of emotion. The upcoming Fall/Winter 2026/27 season promises to be emotional and slightly reflective. Vibrancy gives way to depth, and ostentatious luxury is replaced by enveloping warmth. Five key shades of women's footwear reflect precisely these sentiments: trust in naturalness, attention to texture, and a desire to find beauty in nuances. Let's turn to the professional forecast of seasonal, cutting-edge colors from the international trend bureau Future Snoops. The selection of the Fall/Winter 2026/27 palette from Future Snoops presented in this article is an emotional map of the coming season, speaking of trust and fragile honesty, balance, inner strength, and warmth that requires no occasion. These five shades transform the seasonal footwear styles into a unique color language that can help the brand and its customers express themselves and their emotions.
Revisiting classic standards of retail lighting through the lens of modern technology
Just yesterday, the principle governing retail lighting was: the brighter the light, the brighter the store, the more customers and sales. Today, this principle has lost its relevance. It has been replaced by a trend toward a well-thought-out concept, intelligently applied lighting, and carefully selected lighting fixtures. Anastasia Efremova, SR's expert in retail lighting and lighting designer at Tochka Opory, discusses current lighting principles in fashion and footwear retail, and how light helps interact with merchandise, space, and customer emotions. She will help you understand the fundamental principles of lighting through the lens of new retail space requirements.
How a fashion brand can launch a successful licensed product with a celebrity
Why fashion brands should consider licensing as a strategic tool—this is what Natalia Timashova, editor-in-chief of Shoes Report magazine, discussed with Maria Kozeeva, CEO of the Yulia Vysotskaya media holding (part of the Andrey Sergeevich Konchalovsky Production Center) and brand director of the Edim Doma and Julia Vysotskaya businesses.
How to strengthen and make your brand more sustainable
2025 has become a year of survival for many fashion brands in the challenging and rapidly changing conditions of an overheated market: declining traffic, the closure of entire chains and companies, the consolidation of sellers on marketplaces, the shift of customer traffic from offline to online—all these and other factors have impacted everyone, especially the weaker ones, those experiencing various challenges. The market has shifted to savings consumption. Some consider this a crisis, but our expert, Dania Tkacheva, a business consultant specializing in sales management and strategic development for fashion brands, calls it the maturation of the market. She offers distressed companies her own tool for diagnosing their business and opportunities for recovery and recovery. She calls this tool the Brand Maturity Pyramid.
Sales of additional goods and services can add up to 20-30% to a store's turnover.
Many stores today have hit a sales ceiling: they have the product range, the team is working hard, the marketing is up and running, but revenue isn't growing. Where can they find growth opportunities? In reality, the potential for growth lies right in the customer's receipt. And it's not about raising prices, but about offering customers more value at the point of purchase. We discussed with Maria Gerasimenko, an expert at SR in fashion business management and development, how to increase sales with additional merchandise, why accessories and related products are becoming a strategic source of profit, and the role of the store team.
How to learn to effectively manage store customer traffic?
Customer traffic in shopping malls and street retail is declining; people are shopping less offline for a number of objective reasons, one of which is the convenience of online shopping with all its advantages. And yet, offline shopping continues to thrive. How can we control store traffic, learn to correctly calculate and influence the number of people visiting stores to ensure profitability?
From July 27 to 29, the Euro Shoes@CAF_Eliteline 2026 exhibition will be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Elite Line is an international specialized exhibition of footwear, fur, leather, and accessories. The exhibition will feature collections from international and domestic manufacturers from Russia, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, and other countries.
Just a month until the Euro Shoes exhibition in Moscow!
We are counting down the days for the main international exhibition of footwear and accessories Euro Shoes Premiere Collection in Moscow! The exhibition will be held from August 27 to 30 at a new premium venue – the capital's congress center WTC on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment.
The Battle for the Sports Shoe Market
Fashion market experts and economic analysts predict a decline in sales of Nike and Adidas. The leadership positions of the unsinkable sports giants may be seriously shaken in the coming years, as they are being pushed out by young, bold and active competitors – challenger brands.
Micam and Livetrend presented a selection of footwear trends for the spring-summer 2026 season
The Italian international footwear fair Micam presents the "Spring-Summer 2026 Trend Guide", developed in collaboration with Livetrend. The guide is based on the analysis of social networks, online marketplaces and fashion shows, as well as new technologies such as artificial intelligence and Big Data.
The share of marketplaces will grow
The footwear category on Ozon Fashion shows steady growth
Turn to Asia. Features of shoe production at a factory in China
Finding a partner factory for shoe production is not an easy process. Today, many Russian brands sew their collections in factories in China. The concept of the women's shoe brand N.early N.aked, founded in 2019, was based on the idea of producing shoes suitable for dancing, with a perfect fit. Initially, the shoes were sewn in Europe, but in 2022, shoe production was moved to China.
How to Compete with Marketplaces in 2025
The shoe business is a complex process due to the many related micro-strategies used to extract profit. It is necessary to determine how much goods to purchase, what trade margin to set, and approve the norm of balances at the end of the season. In addition, it is necessary to draw up a sales plan and decide on marketing campaigns that take into account seasonal demand and the competitive environment, set up a personnel motivation system and correctly set control points.
Rieker and Remonte will present their new collections at Euro Shoes!
The brands Rieker and Remonte, which are among the leading shoe companies in Germany, will present their Spring-Summer'26 collections in Moscow at the international exhibition of footwear and accessories Euro Shoes! The exhibition will be held from August 27 to 30, 2025 at a new premium venue in the WTC Congress Center on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment.
New Tamaris Spring-Summer 26 Collection: Comfort and Elegance in Every Model
German footwear and accessories brand Tamaris will present its new Spring-Summer '26 collection at the Euro Shoes exhibition in Moscow, from August 27 to 30.
KV+ sneakers for city and sports for the first time at Euro Shoes
The Swiss brand KV+ is not so well known to the general Russian audience, but it is well known in the world of skiing, because it was there that KV+ took its first steps and actively developed. The Swiss brand has earned the trust of the professional sports audience over the past 35 years. At the same time, the Russian sports market of ski equipment has always been a priority for the Swiss.
Creating an emotional connection through a showcase
Emotional response from customers is the key to successful retail sales. Shop windows are capable of not only attracting attention, but also evoking emotions: from joy and nostalgia to a sense of belonging and the desire to possess. Using psychological triggers in shop window design helps turn a passerby into a buyer. SR expert in visual merchandising and retail design Viktor Malygin talks about approaches to the concept of shop window design and current themes and plots for presenting goods in shop windows.
Shoe educational program: what shoe soles are made of
“What is the difference between TEP and EVA? What does tunit promise me? Is PVC glue? What is the sole of these shoes made of? ”- the modern buyer wants to know everything. In order not to smash his face in front of him and be able to explain whether such a sole suits him in soles, carefully read this article. In it, process engineer Igor Okorokov tells what materials the soles of shoes are made of and what makes each of them so good.
How to set prices that will earn
Some businessmen still confuse the concept of margin with the concept of trade margins and set prices for their goods, guided solely by the example of competitors. No wonder they go broke! Analyst at the Academy of Retail Technologies Maxim Gorshkov gives several tips and formulas with which you can set not only ruinous, but also profitable prices.
Sales of shoes and accessories: effective techniques for business rhetoric
Which speech modules are effective in communicating with potential and current customers of shoe stores, and which are not, Anna Bocharova, a business consultant, knows.
We form the salary of sellers: expert advice
“How do you charge your consultants for personal or general sales?” Is one of the most popular questions causing a lot of controversy and gossip on the online forums of retail business owners. Indeed, how to properly form the earnings of sellers? But what about bonuses, where to get a sales plan from, do employees allow them to buy goods at discounted stores? In search of truth, the Shoes Report turned to a dozen shoe retailers, but no company wanted to disclose its motivation system - the process of its development was too complicated and individual. Then we asked four business consultants, and finally became convinced that the topic of seller motivation is very complex, because even our experts could not come to a common opinion.
The whole truth about Bayer. Who is he and how to become one?
Bayer is no longer a new, but still a popular and sought-after profession. It’s fashionable to be a buyer. Buyers are at the origins of the emergence and development of trends. If the designer offers his vision of fashion in the season, then the buyer selects the most interesting commercial ideas. It is on buyers that the policy of sales of stores and what, in the end, the buyer will wear depends on. This profession is surrounded by a magical fleur, often associated with a lack of understanding of what exactly is the work of a buyer.
Technology Selling Issues
There is nothing worse than meeting the buyer with the words “Hello, can I help you with something?”, Because the seller works in the store just to help. Criticizing this well-established pattern of communication with the buyer, Andrei Chirkarev, business coach for effective sales and the founder of the New Economy project, shares the technology of truly selling issues with readers of Shoes Report.
Fur, and not only: types of lining
In the production of winter footwear, various materials are used that are designed to retain heat and meet the requirements of consumers: natural sheepleather, artificial fur, artificial fur from natural wool and others. All types of lining fur have their own advantages and disadvantages. Let's consider the properties of each of them.
Retail Arithmetic
Before you begin to solve specific problems, you need to find out how accurately all the leaders of your company understand the basic terminology of retail.
How to fire a worker without tears, scandal and trial
Sooner or later, any manager is faced with the need to part with an employee. Correctly and on time the dismissal procedure will save the company money, and the boss himself - nerves and time. But why sometimes, knowing that a break in relations is inevitable, we postpone the decision for months?