The fall in demand has made many promotion tools ineffective. Is it possible to regain previous success or find new ways to attract customer attention? The answers to this question were sought by Liliana Berger.
"Change or Die!"
This frightening phrase from Tatiana Komissarova, dean of the Higher School of Marketing and Business Development of the State University - Higher School of Economics, sounds like a verdict for retailers. “The rules have tightened, and there is no third choice. Fighting the situation is not worth it. It just needs to be changed. The crisis has too clearly demonstrated the weaknesses of the middle segment of the shoe business. And today, with an incompetent leadership and an inexpedient approach to solving the tasks set, neglecting the restructuring of system management and innovative views, the collapse of the company is inevitable, "explained Tatiana Komissarova.
The lower the demand, the more attention you need to pay to the service. This truth, slightly forgotten during the large-scale deployment of regional networks, has now come to the fore.
A big difference
The problem is that most of the leaders of Russian shoe companies did not have time to reorient themselves. They grew with the market and used only a marketing marketing model. Under the changed conditions, the consumer marketing model will be more effective.
What is the difference between them?
In managing the mood of customers. If the sales model is built to stimulate as many purchases as possible, then consumer marketing is focused on the other - from the many options to choose the right one.
Why did the marketing model stop working?
To maintain a stable sales, good sellers, marketers, specialists in advertising and PR are needed. However, last year, companies reduced their advertising budgets and staff. This slowed down the sales model.
What prospects does the consumer model have?
Unfortunately, in Russia there are very few specialists who can work with consumer markets (this model is typical for Japan and European countries. The practice of using it is about 30 years). Our marketers are used to supporting demand, not shaping it. Only by changing the approach, you can return customers to stores.
Example: Last year, Realpro did a great job for the Trace shoe store chain. The company changed its positioning, navigation in the trading floor was simplified, and a creative promotion strategy was developed.
The main goal that the network pursued was to turn from a “men's shoes store” into a “store for the whole family” and expand its audience. The facade of the store was stylized as a shoe box. For the convenience of customers, sections in the trading floor are differentiated by color: men's shoes are in the blue sector, women’s in the pink and children’s in bright yellow.
Is advertising profitable?
How is advertising changing? Glamor with ideal advertising models is a thing of the past. Artificial impeccability buyers are fed up and wanted more information. So it is necessary to give it - generously and from the heart. About the quality and properties of the product, about how it can be useful to the consumer.
Zenden employees believe that people like funny and enjoyable ads. “The crisis, winter apathy, a hangover after the holidays spoil people's lives, and they don’t want to spend money. With our advertising, we try to create their mood and help them return to normal. Our clients are young people and middle-aged people who actively respond to cheerful, vibrant and positive advertising. For example, on advertising posters with discount information, a collage with mowing mice was depicted. After we released outdoor advertising in the style of Soviet propaganda about the price revolution. ”
You must choose the right channel for the distribution of advertising.
According to studies presented at the XIII International Conference "Marketing in Russia", advertising on the Internet is most effective. It is gaining momentum and advertising using sms. Image advertising still does not lose its relevance, as people sometimes want to see something beautiful and pleasant around them.
BTL promotion is of interest
The owner comes to the store to make a profit. The buyer is to have fun. BTL stocks usually appear at the intersection of these two interests. Unlike sales, BTL are built either on interactive communication with customers (send a photo, draw, sing, come up with and get ...), or on cooperative cooperation with companies from another sector (store + restaurant, store + pharmacy, store + cinema, store + gallery). Both methods are effective, and the only thing that is required for complete success is a clear organization. The expected results are quite obvious: for the buyer not only to come and buy, but to remember and speak.
One of the most successful and interesting BTL events in 2009 was shoe packaging. Agree, packaging is a strictly functional thing. But world-famous brands, using a fantasy game in their work, invented new forms with hidden additional properties.
Reebok Extra Grip has come up with a unique package. In anticipation of new sneakers, the buyer comes home, opens the box, and there it is empty. The secret is that a pair of shoes is attached to the inside of the cap.
By its centennial, Converse has released jubilee packaging in the form of a book stack, which can be stored on the shelf among other literary works.
In the box from Nike Stadium sneakers you can find a whole stadium in the form of a three-dimensional image. And Clot x Nike Air Force 1 created for his sneakers a kind of mysterious Pandora's box from Greek mythology.
Cooperation with Disney allowed the ECCO network to organize a series of campaigns “Watch a movie in Ecco shoes” - when buying two pairs of shoes, the buyer received a ticket for the premiere of the movie.
What else pleased the Russian companies with the buyers?
MONARCH chose the queen
The MONARCH Footwear chain of stores held a photo contest “Become the MONARCH Queen!” For a month. The winner was the 18-year-old Muscovite Anna Stepanyan. She will be the face of a chain of stores in the new season "Spring-Summer 2010". The award took place in one of the Moscow showrooms of the network.
Anna Stepanyan won the jury with a combination of elegant severity and gentle femininity. “The photos were taken by a professional, but Anna’s natural beauty and grace were visible on them,” says Elena Volkova, director of advertising for the company. The winner of the competition, in addition to filming for an advertising campaign, received a gift certificate in the amount of 10 000 rubles.
The competition also established incentive nominations for girls who won the most votes on the website www.monarch.ru. The title of “Vice Miss MONARCH” and gift certificates for 5000 rubles went to Ekaterina Arbatskaya from Moscow, Ekaterina Tatarnikova from Saratov and Natalya Zhukova from Rostov-on-Don.
Bally supported fellow countryman
Bally, the world's oldest luxury brand, sponsored the Le Corbusier - The Art of Architecture exhibition at London's Barbican Art Gallery. This exhibition is the first survey of the work of this world-renowned architect in London in over twenty years. The exhibition showcases the work of Le Corbusier for 60 years. The exposition focuses on a unique multidisciplinary approach: combining the richness of his paintings, films, sculptures, books and old photographs, original architectural models and interior models.
Both native to Switzerland, Le Corbusier and Bally are known as pioneers in their fields. Bally is known for introducing factory-made shoes. Le Corbusier became famous for radical ideas in the field of architecture.
The opening of the exhibition coincided with the new period for the Bally brand, as the brand first turned to e-commerce and launched its online store.
Along with the exhibition, Bally released an Argus bag for men and a wonderful model of Ilya women's shoes; everything is the personification of the modernist style of Le Corbusier. Both models were created specifically for the opening of the exhibition.
Sela took up animal husbandry
Sela regularly holds BTL promotions. The St. Petersburg office of the company thought about using the airspace of stores, hanging an inflatable cow in the entrance area. It was impossible not to notice the toy of impressive size. She was very pleased with the children who persistently drove into the parents' store. According to the creators of this decor, they managed to draw attention to the brand in a super-cheap way. The price of a cow is only 50 rubles. “SELAvie,” as the company says.
Clarks entered world literature
Clarks Ukrainian store for children held a competition "Big fantasies of little dreamers." Young masters of pen and paper were supposed to compose a fairy tale in which the main characters would be a pair of shoes. All 11 participants for their honest work received a teddy bear and Clarks book, “Keeping Your Hands in Turbulent Hands” - during the holiday, which was held in the store. An additional prize - a nice mouse - was awarded to the works of Marta Agafonova and Diana Gabrilchuk. Well, the fairy tale-poem of eight-year-old Valeria Bondarenko “Friendship” was recognized as the best.
Сonclusion There are three key findings. The crisis has changed the marketing marketing model to the consumer one. Buyers need much more product information. Information will be more intelligible if you make it entertaining.
| 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?