Silver Cup Means Business

Quality Shoe Repair Means Good Business for

2004 Grand Silver Cup Winner Barry Croft

Three points! That’s what separated Barry Croft from the Grand Silver Cup last year. A couple misaligned stitches, a slight miscalculation on the heel breast and not enough detail on the bottom finish were just enough to allow the cup to slip through his hands.

This bothered Barry, an admitted perfectionist who prides himself on providing nothing but the finest quality work to his customers at Shoe Savers in Houston, Texas. He vowed to enter the Silver Cup Contest again in 2004, and that no one was going to beat him. His persistence was rewarded with the 2004 Grand Silver Cup – and first place awards in both the men’s and ladies’ half sole categories, along with a second place award in the men’s full sole category.

Barry grew up in his father’s shoe repair shop, pounding heels before he was tall enough to reach the bench. As a young man, he briefly pursued a medical career during college, but returned to the bench to become a “doctor of heel and sole.” He opened Shoe Savers in 1984, and has been focused on quality craftsmanship ever since.

How’s Business?

Ask many people in the shoe repair industry how business is these days and you won’t see a lot of smiles. Ask Barry Croft and he’ll tell you he has more business than he can handle. The secret? He points directly to the skills that won the awards.

“The work I entered in the contest is exactly what I do every day,” says the third-generation shoe repairer. “Take anything off of my shelf and you’ll see the same quality work as on the contest shoes. We specialize in a high-end clientele and work on very expensive goods. Over the years, my customers have come to know that, if they want quality work, this is it.”

He recommended that those who do quality work should charge what they’re worth.

“I get a good price form my work,” he adds. “We’re one of the most expensive shops in the city. But you get what you pay for. That’s why people come here and they keep coming back. They tell their friends as well. I have even been told by others in the trade not to be so demanding and finicky about my work -- that the customers really don’t know the difference. I never listen to this kind of advice. Many customers do know the difference in quality work and that number is growing daily. That’s why they are in my shop and not in someone else’s.”

Building the Business

A significant source of customers and work for Shoe Savers is the Houston Galleria, a large, upscale mall in the heart of Houston. Barry does all of the repair work for stores such as Neiman Marcus, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Burberry, Yves Saint Laurent, Stuart Weitzman, and a long list of others. His wife, Ellen, gets credit for developing the commercial accounts.

“She took a bunch of samples off the shelf of completed work and work in progress so they could see what goes into our work,” Barry said. “We started with the men’s shoe department at Nieman Marcus. The moment they saw what we did, the manager went into the back room and came out with a load of shoes to fix.”

From there, the Crofts moved to the ladies shoe department, then to the handbag department, then to other stores. Now, they do work for most of the stores in the mall. They pick up and deliver twice weekly and bill each commercial account once a month. The bills are computerized for accuracy and efficiency.

Throughout this process, they expanded their services to meet customer demands. Shoe Savers specializes in finding niche services and filling those needs. Barry has developed different procedures for cleaning, altering or customizing footwear and the repair and refurbishing of handbags.

“When we found needs for different services, I worked on procedures until I got them perfected,” Barry says. “That gave Ellen another tool for her sales presentations.”

“I do a massive amount of alterations on sandals, straps and slings,” he continues when asked about alterations and customizations. “Now it’s boot season. We alter boot tops and make them smaller to fit women with small calves. This is done by taking the entire shaft of the boot apart, tapering the upper and lining and then putting it back together. I can also add an elastic gore to expand the top for womenwith larger calves. When I’m through, the boots look like they’ve never been repaired.”

Padding boots came about as a result of Ellen wanting to add comfort to a pair of her shoes.

“I bought a pair of shoes with a thin, poron padding,” she said. “I asked Barry to take them apart and see what made them more comfortable. Now, we do tons of that kind of work. We have a display showing this process and it generates a lot of customer interest.”

Another niche Shoe Savers is filling is the introduction of foam ladies shoe trees. They are available for pointed and round toe shoes (both slings and pumps), and for boots. Barry found that the old cedar shoe trees available to him didn’t work on the new high fashion shoes that most of his clientele wears. He researched the problem until he found an Austrian supplier that manufactures trees of this sort. Now, Shoe Savers is the exclusive North American distributor of the product.”

The Power of the Silver Cup

Barry grew up in his father’s shoe repair shop and has long known that quality work is the key to a successful shoe repair business. The Silver Cup Awards, however, are more than just an affirmation of his skills. They serve as promotional tools as well. His most recent awards generated articles in the local newspapers and two large articles in the Houston Chronicle. He credits them with bringing in a good bit of new business.

The awards also reinforce for his customers the quality of his work.

“The longer you stay in business, the more trust you gain with people,” he says. “Now, with the awards on the wall, when people ask about quality work, you can point to them for reassurance.”

Consumer Awareness

Public education is something the industry is sorely lacking, according to Barry.

“There has to be some kind of advertising that all of us can do to educate the public about the benefits of shoe repair,” he says.

Shoe Savers educates customers from the moment the walk in the door. Displays tell customers about the services that are available. Ellen and Barry take the time to show customers the difference quality repair makes. They have also been on television stressing quality repair, and have built a web site to support those television appearances.

“The old image needs to be broken,” Barry says, adding that the appearance of the shop is also critical. "We clean our shop every day and restock the front end at the same time. Every two weeks, we do a major cleaning including all of the machines.”

But when it comes right down to it, the reason Barry is swamped while others are begging for business are quality work and ability to expand his services to meet, and sometimes create, customer demand.

“We do things that most shops wouldn’t dream of doing,” he says. “It’s all driven by consumer demand. A lot of it is personal demand as well. I want to see if I can do things nobody else can. I like challenges. That’s what builds my business.”

Sign of the Times

Surveys Point to Signage as the Way Consumers Find Shoe Repair

When Houston Shoe Hospital, Austin Shoe Hospital and Cobblestone Shoe Hospital wanted to know how to make an impression on consumers, they went right to the source. They hired a company to ask customers about their experiences with the shoe repair stores.

The group has 27 shoe repair stores in Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, Texas. They spend about $400,000 each year advertising shoe repair in those markets. Still, when consumers were asked how they heard about the stores, the majority answered by saying they saw the location when they drove by. So the first thing these stores are doing to attract new customers is improving their signage.

 “Our first priority is to clean up our stores and make sure we have the best signage we can,” says Steve Kelly, president of Zapato Shoe Recrafters, the factory that handles the repair work for the stores. “We’re even looking at reader boards that are computerized and allow us to change the message. They’re very expensive, but they drive customers into your stores.”

“The number one way people located our stores was because of our signage,” he continues. “So the best thing we can do to generate new business is to create new signage, whether it’s neon signs in our window or pole signs. It’s clear to us that the absolute, number one key to our locations is to be visible to passing traffic.”

The shops are also focusing on their stores’ appearance.

“Our second priority is dressing up the people in our stores,” Kelly says. “We don’t wear jeans on the counter any longer. Everyone is in a button-down shirt and wears an apron with their name on it.”

Kelly says he wants the Shoe Hospital experience to be pleasant for consumers. The public’s perception of shoe repair is not what it should be. They want to clean up their appearance and make each visit a pleasant one that involves great service and, of course, quality shoe repair.

“Those were the key elements we gathered from the survey,” he continues. “That’s where people saw us and formed their opinions of us.”

Advertising Tips

It’s clear that there is a disconnect between shoe repair and younger consumers. With the attrition of shoe repair shops, it’s more important than ever to have a voice in the market.

“We were taking pictures in the factory for some new ads we’re doing in Texas Monthly,” Kelly relates. “ One of the women there exemplified our target customer – very fashionable, professional, late 20s or early 30s. She looked at the work and said, ‘Wow, you can do this?’ She was talking about simple toplifts. She said she had just thrown away 10 pairs of shoes because she had no idea they could be fixed and she had loved every one of them.”

As he mentioned, Kelly’s stores have a sizable advertising budget to reach these consumers. When asked what advice he would pass along to other shoe repair shops, he offered the following thoughts.

1. Television works best. In smaller markets (between 200,000 and 500,000 people), you can buy spots very affordably. The television stations will produce your ads for free. Cable is a great avenue for advertising.

2. Develop a web site and use it in conjunction with your ads. Today’s consumers are more inclined to get their information from the Internet. We put our web address (www.theshoehospital.com) on everything, even our coupons.

3. Coupons always work well, but don’t limit your offer. In the past, we’ve limited our offers to drive what we were trying to sell. Now, we’re offering 25 percent off whatever customers want to do. We want to write tickets. We believe if we can get the customers into our stores, they’ll come back and visit us again because we’ve done the things at the counter, in the store and with the quality of shoe repair.

4. Billboards are something we will never do again. We have tried them a number of times and they haven’t been successful.

Using the Internet to Build Your Business

by Carol Donahue, Vibram

The World Wide Web is a powerful tool that can be harnessed by the shoe repair trade for two purposes -- to increase sales through a broader reach of customers and to provide support within the trade.

There is a huge online retail market, for the shoe repair trade to tap. According to Computer Industry Almanac and CIA’s World Factbook, more than 206 million users in the United States and Canada (64 percent of the population) have online access. Retail spending is growing at an annual rate of 21 percent, forecast to reach over $105 billion in the United States by 2007 (Jupiter Research).

Most customers will search for a business by using a search engine. The most widely used search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN (Nielson/Net Ratings, Jan. 2004). Many customers go right to the yellow or white pages to search, either by using a search engine or a site such as www.yellow.com.

For a typical search, the customer would go to the search engine site and type in “shoe repair” or the name of a particular shop. Even if you do not have a web page, or do any online retail sales, subscribing to the online yellow pages allows a customer to find your address, phone number, a map and driving directions.

For those who want to have a web site, there are a multitude of ways to get started. Many companies that host e-mail will offer a web site with a limited number of pages for a nominal price. Check the business services sections of popular sites such as Yahoo, Google, or MSN.

Designing a web site can range from simple to very complicated. The price can vary just as widely. You might be able to find a high school or college student who would love to design a web site for relatively little money just for the experience. An advertising agency can do a stunning job with graphics. Whoever designs your website needs to know how to ensure that the site is picked up during searches. If you need resources, you can go to www.amazon.com and search books on search engines.

To help with design, look at as many sites as you can. Make note of what is attractive about each site, its ease of use and what makes it unique. Here are a few sites to use as examples:

www.shoeshinebox.net  -- This is a single page that Jim McFarland put together for successful holiday sales last year.

www.nushoe.com  -- This site features strong brand recognition, and online shoe repair program.

www.quickcobbler.com – mail order link on home page, stresses quality and craftsmanship.

www.myershoe.com – niche marketing, repairs trampolines (next door to trampoline store).

www.hartlandshoes.us – click on one of Gene’s Project links to see step-by-step repairs.

www.seattleshoe.com – packed with consumer information.

Professional Resource Sites are fewer in number but invaluable. Here is a sampling:

www.ssia.info – Shoe Service Institute of America, information for the consumer and the professional including a shop locator, listing of manufacturers and wholesalers, and “Shop To Shop Talk” – a site that everyone in the shoe repair business should visit. The SSIA site is currently undergoing a revamping. Check it out.

www.shoerepairnetwork.com – organization of shoe repair shops, shop locator, product information, message board.

www.vibram.us – go to the shoe repair link for a Shop Locator, Vibram Repair Catalog, custom ad templates and paycheck stuffers.

www.twoten.org – dedicated to the footwear industry, regardless of whether you are a member of their organization or not. Check out their social services and education programs links. They have provided more than $10 million in educational grants to children of workers in the footwear industry in the past 35 years.

The Internet can be an invaluable tool, fostering greater communication and education. Let’s take advantage of its power!

Drop Box Gives Customers 24/7 Access

Be there for your customers even when you're not in the store

This month's helpful hint comes from Randy Lipson at Cobblestone Quality Shoe Repair in St. Louis, Mo. He suggests adding a drop box to your store for customers who drive by before you open or after you close.

The drop box contains repair forms so customers can note the work they would like done on the shoes. If there are any questions, Randy can call and speak to the customer.

The box pictured below costs about $900. Installation may run from $500 to $900 as well. The four Cobblestone stores in St. Louis average about 15 pairs of shoes left in each drop box every week.

Find out more about this one at www.iowatechniques.com.

Resoling Rocky Boots

Question: Most of the Rocky boots that the police wear here have molded soles, I think PVC. They melt when sanded. How do you resole them? I will be using a Vibram 134AR sole.

Jim Downs

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Donald Myers, OST,Pedorthist, President
NEWSHOES- Professinal Shoe Recrafters & Pedorthic Center
Tigard, Oregon

Gluing Soles on Red Wings

Question: Any good advice on gluing new soles on Red Wings?

Goldman

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Lakeland, Florida

Covering Ladies Heels

Question: I have to recover a pair of ladies high-heels and I was wondering if somebody could give me some tips on how to make this job a lot easier than it looks.

Warren

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© 2004 Shoe Service Institute of America.

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