ABSTRACT This study aim to investigate, based on the internationalization of companies' theories, the ways of integration into the industries of shoes' foreign market from the city of Franca, São Paulo, and the current situation of these companies in the process of internationalization of its activities. Questionnaires were sent to two hundred and eight companies that make up the universe of small, medium and large footwear industries in the city, with a return of seventy percent. The results show that they follow a strategy of gradual integration into the international market, in line with the literature on the process of internationalization. Most of them are still in the early stages of this process. The main causes for the slow development of these businesses in the international market are the use of intermediaries in the marketing, lack of own brands and the lack of development of their own channels of distribution abroad.
Internationalization; Footwear industry; Distribution channels; Export; International trade
