MISFIT
INSANITY Strange goings-on down our neck of the woods
Q
uite simply a shoe shop opened just round the corner. Nothing strange there, you say, surely Misfit is used to a bit of competition by now and surely he is, but this was no competition at all. The location was hopeless, the stock was weird, and there was a staff of one. I took one
look and told myself it would not last a year. I was wrong. It didn’t last a month. Suddenly there were a whole lot of
boxes piled up in the dry cleaner’s next door and the shop was being converted into a mini-market, which also does not seem to be doing much business, but that is no affair of mine. What did interest me were the boxes in the dry cleaner’s window, which revealed that the entire stock was produced by one factory in a far-away land. My imagination went into overdrive. Was this a manufacturer hoping to
break into the British market by opening a shop in the sure and certain hope that the punters would come running to buy his superb products? This sounds like madness but I have seen it done by people who think that their shoes won’t sell because of the incompetence of the agents they have appointed. Be assured, if it won’t sell through the usual channels it won’t sell. Or had someone with money and a family member they
wanted to set up in business done some sort of deal with the shoe manufacturer and having rapidly found it was a no-no, cut his losses and turned the shop into a mini-market, reckoning that people must have food (choosing to ignore the Sainsbury’s opposite or the Tesco down the road). My conjectures included: more money than sense, tax loss,
What puzzles me is that, as we all know, it is the shoes you are left with which do the damage to the balance sheet, and they must be stuck with a fair number, either because they bought the wrong styles or simply because the customers and the sizes did not match up, something that goes with the shoe-selling territory. I imagine they minimise the sizes problem by sticking to middle sizes, but, bearing in mind that the shoes they sell are all adventurous styles with a high risk/return ratio, then can it be worthwhile? We all hanker after that extra turnover that can be got by branching off
into new areas, but shoes? Not the easiest game to play. It isn’t as if, as in our case, the chancy lines are cushioned by the solid regular sellers. If they buy wrong, they lose. Simple as that. They work on the theory that if you can sell, then you can sell anything.
You don’t have to have any technical knowledge of your product, just how to market it. You don’t have to know what you are selling – it is all on the label. It is the manufacturer or importer’s job to give the information and if it is wrong then they get the brickbats. Caveat Emptor (for those of you who are not lawyers or do not speak fluent Latin it means Let the Buyer Beware) has gone out of the window.
or even stupidity, all of which I have encountered in my time, but this event made me look around and take a long hard look at the local retail picture. I had not realised how many changes there have been since I started. Misfit Shoes is now one of the oldest-established businesses around. It also came to me how few shops on the High Street are actually selling anything. The butcher the baker and the candlestick maker have all folded their tents and stolen away. Their premises have been taken by restaurants, betting shops, estate agents, opticians and of course charity shops. Even the building societies are in retreat. The only proper retailers left are dress shops, shoe shops and pharmacists. We have a book shop which is struggling and a brave soul has just opened a sweetshop franchise. That is it. It is of course the result of competition from the supermarkets and now
My imagination went into overdrive. Was this a manufacturer hoping to break into the British market by opening a shop in the sure and certain hope that the punters would come running to buy his superb products? This sounds like madness but I have seen it done by people who think that their shoes won’t sell because of the incompetence of the agents they have appointed. Be assured, if it won’t sell through the usual channels it won’t sell.
the internet, but what puzzled me as I did my informal survey of the local retail scene was that every single dress shop was selling shoes. This appears to make a lot of sense, on the basis that while the customer’s credit cards are out of their wallets they may well be tempted to fork out for a pair of shoes to go with the outfit they have just bought. Nothing wrong with that. As I said before, I am not afraid of healthy competition. But I cannot understand the economics from their point of view. I assume their customers are not that bothered about perfect fit, durability or any of that sort of foolishness – they just want to look nice. I understand the convenience to the customer of getting themselves kitted out all in one go.
12 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • AUGUST 2011
The sellers do not have to know about what they are selling and the customers have virtually no responsibility at all. A deal is not a deal any more. We have come to take for granted that people can bring unworn shoes back simply because they have changed their minds. Our problem is we are selling a product that cannot be labelled like a
yoghurt, simply because it has to be married to the feet it will cover, for better or for worse. A shoe is not a pot of yoghurt which once eaten is forgotten. Perhaps my knowledge of leathers and other materials, shoe construction,
foot anatomy, foot fitting is useless. All I have to do to sell shoes is look at the materials label and parrot what it says. In fact, maybe I should dispense with most of the staff and just stand by the till and take the money. Trouble is: I don’t think it would work, and if it did it would be awfully boring.
www.footweartoday.co.uk
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