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São Paulo – The quality and competitive pricing of Brazilian leather footwear have piqued the interest of Joju Abraham and Radha Nair Kollaikal, two Indians who’ve been based in Dubai, the UAE for several years now. They were invited by the organizers of the International Shoe, Leather Goods and Accessories Fair (Couromoda) to join the event’s 2018 edition, from Monday (15) through Thursday (18) in São Paulo. Abraham and Kollaikal are in Brazil for the first time, looking for suppliers for a business that’s still in its planning stages.
“We are looking for men’s, women’s and children’s shoes for the retail business we’ll open in September,” Abraham told ANBA this Tuesday (16) at Expo Center Norte, where Couromoda 2018 is taking place. “We will have big, 10,000-square-foot stores, so we need a lot of product,” he explained.
The investor backing the deal is Sobha, an India-based enterprise active in Dubai’s real estate sector. Abraham said the company is expanding into retail, particularly shoes – and he was hired to get the business going, since he has over 20 years’ experience under his belt.
“I’m head of business and my colleague is head of procurement,” he said. According to him, most outlets will be in malls in the UAE and other Gulf countries. “We’ll open stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. Our plan is to have 50 stores in four years’ time.”
At Couromoda, Abraham is looking for leather shoes, even though he liked some of the synthetic children’s shoes he saw. The idea is to find brands that the store chain could carry – there are no plans of making purchases just yet. “We will likely return in March or April to visit manufacturing plants and pick our suppliers. What we want is for our stores to have something Brazilian about them,” he says.
His attraction for Brazil is not a new thing, even though this is his first time in the country: in his 21 years in the industry, he has worked with Brazilian product before. “Prices have gone up a lot in the last few years, but the product is unparalleled worldwide,” he said, praising the quality, competitiveness and design of Brazilian shoes.
Besides Abraham and Kollaikal, other buyers from Arab countries have come to Couromoda at the invitation of the fair’s organizers.
Sales to Arab countries
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Despite the 19% drop in footwear exports to the UAE – the biggest Arab buyer of shoes from Brazil – last year, the Brazilian Footwear Industry Association (Abicalçados) is optimistic about 2018. According to Roberta Ramos, the project manager for Brazilian Footwear, a program in tandem with the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil), sales results began improving in the second half of 2017.
“What we heard is that Brazilian shoes have become competitive again, so they’re looking at our product again. Arabs enjoy shoes made in Brazil. They will pick our shoes over Chinese shoes, provided that prices are competitive,” she told ANBA.
Ramos said he does not expect a rebound, but believes the share of Brazilian products in Arab markets will increase as they replace product from China.
Brazilian Foootwear is also helping. At Couromoda 2017, over ten Arab buyers were invited and travelled to Brazil. “The results were positive and helped fuel results in the second half.”
Further actions are in the plans for 2018. Ramos explains that the program has hired Dubai PR firm Yardstick to advertise the project and footwear from Brazil, and to work with influencers, journalists and bloggers. At the same time, new buyers are being sought out.
In the fourth quarter this year, Brazilian Footwear is planning to get all these players together for a dinner, probably in Dubai. She said one-on-one contact is key, since this is how Arabs favor doing business.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
