First swallows

The Chelyabinsk shoe makers from the Unichel company announced their own plan to overcome the crisis. In a nutshell, it can be formulated as follows: to make branded shoes even cheaper and more affordable. The first of the measures taken: not a decrease in production volumes, but sales of a new collection with a 20% discount at the beginning of the season. “We deliberately made such a decision and went to meet the customers halfway,” explains the reasons that guided the company, General Director of “Unichel” Vladimir Denisenko. “Since our products are consumer goods, they should be available to the general public.” Despite the price reduction, they are not going to abandon the brand quality. The required amount of high-quality leather, fur and glue was purchased at the enterprise in advance, even at pre-crisis prices. So far, foreign suppliers have stated that they are ready to work with Unicel on the most favorable terms for the company.

At the Kalyazin felted shoe factory “Bitza”, too, everything is calm: in cold weather, felt boots are in demand, sales are in order. About a hundred people work in the production of felt boots, and no cuts are expected. There are no delays in salaries and in the near future will not be. The prospects here are more or less confident.

Another producer of shoes from the same city - LLC PF Kalyazin-Obuv - was provided with work for the entire first half of the 2009 of the year. There are no delays in wages. The number of employees does not change, no reductions are expected.

Alexander Greb, head of the advertising and PR department at Ralf Ringer, says that the situation with the production will be clear in two months: “Orders cannot be reduced now if people work systematically. Only two collections are sold in Russia, an order is made in advance. ”

Of the “high-profile” projects that were curtailed last year, two can be noted.

In Russia in the 2008 year, the Volga Textile Company (VTK, part of the Moscow investment group SAVVA) closed the production of model shoes that had just begun at the Kuznetsk shoe factory in the Penza region, and abroad had to abandon the production of "vegetarian" shoes Natalie Portman.

VTK made a technical default on bonds. More than half the volume of securities issued by VTK in December 2006 (1 million units at a price of 1 thousand rubles) was submitted for the offer: the total amount of investor claims amounted to 944,56 million rubles. Acting General Director of the company Vladislav Dudin said that VTK has no opportunity to early repay the bonds: a deal to sell non-core assets worth about 1,2 billion rubles. broke due to the financial crisis. Nevertheless, Dudin noted that VTK was prepared for the crisis - the company was reorganized, an effective management system and production cycle were built, and the headcount was optimized. Although Vladislav Dudin admits that the company has been re-loaned. VTK's debt burden is about 4 billion rubles. The ambitious development programs of VTK, for which investments were attracted, were designed for economic growth, so the crisis hit them significantly.

Actress Natalie Portman, who launched the eco-shoe line together with the American company Te Casan, was forced to leave the market due to financial insolvency - Te Casan is on the verge of ruin and closes its representative offices, including on the Internet .

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The debut collection of eco-friendly shoes by Natalie Portman appeared in February 2008, the price of shoes began at $ 200. When creating shoes, according to Portman, materials were used in the production process of which no animals were harmed.

Distribution

Some chains began to reduce the number of their stores. The Zenden shoe center in Pskov ceased to exist; the closure of one of the largest Pskov shoe stores was associated with a reduction in the company's retail network. For the same reason, at the end of January, the Zenden shoe center will be closed in one of the cities of the Vladimir region.

The economic downturn has led to a decrease in consumer demand in Novosibirsk. According to Novosibirskstat, the decline in real disposable cash income in October amounted to 3% (compared to September), the growth rate of non-food retail in October fell by 5%. One of the Askania chain of stores is preparing to close in Novosibirsk. According to the head of the marketing department Elina Pykhalova, there are several reasons, including rental prices and a decrease in consumer traffic in the area of ​​the street where the store was opened.

Sales in Novosibirsk at Ecco and Clarks stores fell by more than 30% in November, their co-owner Sergey Kakoshkin said. Since December 3, the chain has closed two stores in the Siberian Mall shopping center.

Director and owner of Obuv Rossii, Anton Titov, speaks of a possible 10-15% reduction in sales in 2009. In response to this trend, Obuv Rossii has suspended the development of the Emilia Estra project launched in August 2007. Outlets in Omsk, Novosibirsk and Barnaul will be redesigned under the Westfalika brand. In Krasnoyarsk, the store was closed.

According to Natalia Pauli, the head of the PR department of Obuv Rossii GK, Obuv Rossii freezes Emilia Estra as a network project for a year, but does not refuse the Emilia Estra brand. Shoes under this brand will be present in Westfalika stores, which are also part of Obuv Rossii Group of Companies, and will amount to 3 – 5% of its assortment. The owners of the company optimize not only the process of selling shoes, but also the process of its production. In November 2008 of the year, Obuv Rossii GC entered into an agreement on the joint production of shoes with the Chinese company Emanlo. Now at the Novosibirsk factory "Westfalika" they will collect not only winter and demi-season shoes, but also summer shoes. Production volumes will amount to 10 – 12 thousand pairs per month. According to the agreement with the Emanlo company, the shoes will be cut and sewn in China, and finished products will be assembled in Novosibirsk. Transferring part of the costly operations to the Emanlo factory will reduce the cost of finished products by 15 – 20%, and will also allow diversifying the Westfaliki lineup.

Shoe companies are losing support infrastructure. Thus, the economic crisis deprived Yekaterinburg of a whole segment of the services market. All modeling agencies ceased to function in the city. At the end of the year, they suspended their activities due to the fact that previously concluded contracts were terminated at the initiative of customers. But the crisis had a beneficial effect on the situation in the sewing and shoe ateliers: the number of orders for the repair of clothes and shoes in December increased by 10 – 15% compared to last year.

Harmanli, a Turkish shoe distribution company, says orders for their products have now fallen by about 20%. “For all shoe makers, orders have declined interest on 50,” the company spokesman said.