The development of the children’s goods market in 2019, profitable supplies of children’s goods to retail chains, and branding and competition in the children’s goods market were the main topics of the Forum. The Forum participants pointed out that in 2018 there were a lot of interesting and bright speakers and emotional presentations. The volume of the children’s goods market in Russia amounted to 529 billion rubles last year. Will the market stagnation continue? What was the supply and demand ratio within these 529 billion? How are sales channels of children’s goods developing? What growth drivers and what challenges for the players of the children’s goods market will 2019 bring? Those were the issues of the analytics session held by Irina Sedova, NPD Group Russia Business Development Director.

Nicholas Coro, an Expert in Neuromarketing, made his speech at the second session. He told about instruments and ideas necessary to stick out from massive information noise and make digital children and parents loyal to your brand.

The following sessions of the Forum were dedicated to supplies to hypermarkets, supermarkets and specialized retail chains of goods for children. The main accent was put on the preparation of an expert commercial offer, on presentation of products, on the work that should be carried out before negotiations start. Elena Savchenko, Dochki-Synochki Retail Chain Own Brands Department Director, spoke about the importance of growing one’s own brands; she described plans for development of the chain’s own brands; she told what categories and price segments of their own brands would be growing. Representatives of Auchan, X5 Retail Group, TC Victoria were speakers at the session, too.

About 50 representatives of offline and online retail shops from 60 regions of Russia attended the Forum. The retail chains representatives carried out negotiations with manufacturers whose representatives’ number exceeded 200.

Besides, a special program for retailers was developed: the Retail Chains Center. It took place in a business hall and a comfortable lounge zone open during all days of the exhibition in Hall 2. The visitors to the Retail Chains Center felt comfortable: they had a separate cloakroom and own storage facilities. There was catering and a separate meeting zone with computers and printers. The buyers were able to visit all the associated events during four days of the exhibition.

“Imperia Congress and Exhibition Company organized the Retail Chains Center within the Forum for the first time. This is a supporting event for the buyers who come from the most distant places of Russia and neighboring countries,” Stanislav Sladkovsky, Deputy General Director of Imperia Congress and Exhibition Company. “We clearly understand that, first of all, they need to carry out face-to-face negotiations, relax, and have some food. We have made all these arrangements and already got a positive response. The colleagues managed to hold intensive negotiations and at the same time to listen to interesting talks at the conference, and solve a number of matters within a short period of time.”