We made a late decision to come to the show after Bob discovered that it attracted more than 16,000 beauty professionals during the three days. He also found out that they were looking for a nail art judge and so he 'volunteered' me to help!
We'd been to Riga before - it's quite popular to take a ferry (more like a small cruise ship) from Stockholm to Riga, Tallin in Estonia or Helsinki (Finland). Riga has a lovely old town and has good shipping and restaurants - so it's perfect for a weekend break. You can read more about Riga here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riga
Unfortunately, the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have been hit very hard by the economic crises. So we really didn't know what to expect from a beauty show during these difficult times.
Although the show seemed to attract a lot of visitors, few people were buying products from what we could see. We didn't take products to sell (we didn't have the time or energy to make arrangements with the Latvian tax office to collect and pay sales tax) - but instead wanted to show ourselves and products, and get feel of the market. Iryna Zamostinchuk our Global Educator and distributor from Moldova came and helped, making nail art on the booth when I was judging.
Over the three days we made some good contacts who are potential partners in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, saw some nice nail art and met many nail techs who were interested in our products and education concept. So we were glad we went!
No comments:
Post a Comment