Many visitors headed for the Speakers Lounge area, where lecturers spoke in German and English about store design, motivation, add-ons and fashion trends.
     
Kicking off the lectures was the Schleifenbaum Design & Project. Fashion retail expert Hanns-Jurgen Assent thought shopping was about pure seduction and desire. He compared it to a play at the theatre where the main protagonists, the shoes, have to stand out from the crowd with their authenticity, winning over hearts with successful staging.
     
‘Nobody needs shoes!' It was with this provocative statement that motivational speaker and sales instructor Hans Meurer began his lecture. "If we only sold the shoes people need we would have all gone bankrupt long ago." So, for ‘need' read ‘want to have'. Social recognition, security, trust, self-respect and independence are the factors that make for ‘motivational', emotional selling.
     
Membrane specialist Sympatex presented a small revolution in shoe breathability. Thanks to new Air-Jet technology, breathability is achieved here via the sole and also the leg. An innovative high-tech combination of uppers and lining gives maximum dynamic breathability and 100% waterproofing. This innovation will be used for the first time in some collections presented at GDS for the 2010 Spring/Summer season.
     
What will fashionable children be wearing next summer? This question was explored by the firm Ricosta as part of the Kids' Business Brunch. In cooperation with children's fashion manufacturer 667 - baby of the beast, the audience was given many fashion inspirations and specific order tips for the 2010 summer season.
     
The idea of footwear accessories as lucrative generators of revenue was a focal theme for the Furnituren-Special seminar by BNS und Pedag. Thomas Timm, Managing Director of Pedag, recommends exact target group analysis to specifically cater to customers' needs.
     
Fail-safe, well-presented tips for good shoe care are more successful than purely sales-oriented, memorized questioning where staff are constantly under pressure. In his talk Ehlers had many tips on how to make customers curious without forcing something on them.
     
The future of retail - also in the shoe business - lies, according to Keyserlingk, in individuality and quality. Excellent advice and assistance, inspiring ranges with surprises in store, intelligent cross-selling and target-group focused marketing are the key pillars of success.

Gold and grass transform shoes into art
Shoe styles from great French fashion designers such as Charles Jourdan, Louis Vuitton, Raymond Massaro, Robert Clergerie, Roger Vivier and Stephane Kelian, along with European designers like Patrick Cox, Paco Rabanne and Andrea Pfister, were presented by the International Shoe Museum of Romans. The exhibition presented 20 styles dating from between 1967 and 2009 selected from the French museum's 16,500 exhibits. Numerous visitors came to be inspired by the creative designs. A highlight for movie fans was the ankle boots by designer Carlo Pompei, worn by Leonardo Di Caprio in the film Titanic.
     
Shoes even became works of unconventional art, as those made of golden sequins, tree bark and even artificial lawn were featured in an exhibition named Art & Hamlet.
     
This unique idea was the brainchild of Detlef W. Stichling, founder of Hamlet and former advertising filmmaker. Michael Ottopal, stage designer, sculptor and owner of Hamlet, realized the project with artists and art enthusiasts.
     
At GDS - International Event for Shoes & Accessories was held from 11-13 September and attracted 765 exhibitors with over 1,800 collections. The next GDS will be in Dusseldorf from 12-14 March 2010.
     
All activities on GDS and GLOBAL SHOES can be found at www.gds-online.com and www.globalshoes-online.com.