MAGIC in Las Vegas Supports Women, Youth Shoes and M-Commerce

More than 1500 of thousands of shoe brands showed their collections at the international exhibition of clothes, shoes and accessories MAGIC marketplace, which took place on February 13-15 in Las Vegas.

Commercial potential, creative inspiration and communication are the three foundations on which MAGIC was created and operates. Now it is the main American platform for communication of clothing, footwear and accessories trade professionals, which is visited by over 10 thousand people every year and on which about 5000 brands are exhibited. 

MAGIC includes several exhibits WWDMAGIC, FN PLATFORM, MENS / WEAR, STREET, SLATE, POOLTRADESHOW, PROJECT and SOURCING at MAGIC. Almost all the exhibitors at the February exhibition said that in addition to the pre-booked meetings, they had many new visitors at their stands who came “without a call”.

On average, the daily order at the exhibition reaches $ 200 million, the leading trend agencies WGSN, Doneger Creative Services, Pantone and Fashion Snoops conduct their seminars here, and orders are made by Bloomingsdales, Nordstrom and Zappos. 

This year, for the second time, Sterne Agee, one of the country's largest investment funds, joined the participants - he became a member of the discussion panel on changing consumer behavior. The participation of a company of this level is a significant fact for the exhibition. 

Shoes are presented in a separate exhibition of FN PLATFORM, discussion of commercial orders is organically supplemented by discussions during the business program. In February, the future of shoe retail was discussed by experts from national associations USRA, NSRA, Footwear News, top bloggers and top managers of companies, for example, Jim Salzano from Clarks and Rick Paterno from the Jones Group.

Shoe corporation Analpa.inc showed collections of youth brands KEDDO and BETSY at MAGIC. For the first time in 15 years, the company decided to withdraw from the WSA Show in Las Vegas, moving to the MAGIC Marketplace. The company hoped to become closer to customers in this way, and the goal was achieved - the owners of youth clothing boutiques actively ordered both KEDDO and BETSY for the assortment. Many customers have increased their order compared to previous seasons. Orders are growing because the owners need exclusives, and Analpa.inc youth brands are a breath of fresh air for the American market, now most of the companies selling youth shoes are mature, established businesses, their managers are no longer interested in experimenting with design, format, search approaches to the buyer. Against this background, Analpa.inc compares favorably with them, attention to its brands is also growing because it sells youth European trends unusually cheaply, therefore, with the general stagnation of the market, Analpa.inc's business is growing steadily.

FN PLATFORM traditionally became a sponsor of the Women In Footwear Industry (WIFI) project, the idea of ​​which belongs to the TwoTen Footwear Foundation, which has been working for more than 70 years under the motto “shoepeople helping shoepeople.” Inspire, support, teach - These are the goals of the WIFI project. Beginners and accomplished, top managers and designers, every year more and more women join the project. If in 2009 there were 12, then in 2011 there are already more than 600. 

In February, during FN PLATFORM, more than 100 women gathered to share their experiences of achieving goals, share tips, insights, personal stories, and answer questions about success, loss, inspiration, dreams and everyday strategies. Representatives of TOMS, Asics, Skechers, Shoe Dazzle, Charles David, Chinese Laundry and other companies shared their experiences. According to Rebecca Mink, a designer of vegan shoes under the MINK brand, she participates in WIFI for a sense of support and community. Fatima Jaafari, coordinator of Foot Petals, who supplies accessories for shoes, agrees with her: “Listening to how women like me talk about their successes, I understand that I myself can achieve a lot.”

A complete and large-scale panorama of rising stars in design is the WWDMAGIC's Emerging Designer Showcase project. Sponsored by Fashion Business Incorporated (FBI), the project has brought together 15 designers this season to showcase their ideas in a variety of fields, from bag design to swimwear and evening wear. 

A new WWDMAGIC initiative is the Buzz Boutique project, which is worth paying special attention to. This is a separate exhibition where participants and visitors could personally experience all the achievements of mobile commerce designed for fashion companies, updates for iPods, iPads and other mobile devices, shops on social networks, services for customers in social media - all new solutions, for which the future of trade.

According to Mike Elmgreen, director of development for the Handshake platform, the Buzz Boutique project will significantly save time for brands and protect them from mistakes when choosing M-Commerce technologies through careful selection of participants. In February, visitors to MAGIC received a detailed analysis of Volusion’s work technologies, which offer social media sales, SocialRadius, which provides social media promotion, as well as complete information about Google and eBay Fashion services.