Cheryl Taylor, Editor, talks to footwear retailer Sue Tye, Manager, Heffords Footwear St. Peter, Jersey


Kindly tell us about your shop, its location and your customers? Based on the idyllic island of Jersey, Heffords shoe shop is situated outside of the main town on the island in an easily accessible village in the countryside. We provide our customers with bespoke service and fitting from the moment they walk in the door, all the way through to providing limited after sale care, including shoe stretching and replacement sourcing. Our customer base is as wide and varied as the population of the island,


with customers coming to us as young children and carrying on all the way through to adulthood. The shop has been open for several generations and indeed has been a port of call for families who were brought to us as children and are now bringing their own children. We cater to all ages with a focus on the formal and elegant for the adults; school and seasonal for the children. There is also a very large ageing population with problem feet and a wide cross-section of customers who reside in care homes.


What made you decide to buy this brand? We have stocked Sandpiper for a number of years already, and expanded to include the Suave range over the last few years. Growing demand for the strengths of the brand has lead to our increase in the size of the range stocked and the inclusion of the Suave range.


Which features of the brand do you like best and why? The areas of strength for Sandpiper are the natural width of the shoes, together with an excellent range of toe shapes that allow us to cater for our very diverse range of customers who require very specific solutions to their problems. In addition to that many of the shoes come with removable innersoles which help us to provide even greater depth when required, or provide a deeper solution to customers who have their own orthopaedic innersoles that prove to be to large for other ranges to accommodate.


How does this brand compare with other brands in the same category you stock? At the current time we do not stock any brands that compete in the same niche as the Sandpiper shoes. Given how successful they have been for us over time, and the excellent relationship with the manufacturer we have, we have had no need to change the current state of affairs and introduce another competing brand.


Which styles have worked best for you? This summer so far has been excellent for Sandpiper and Suave sandals. ‘Pru’ has proven again to be a standout seller in the summer sandal range, ably backed up by ‘Cheryl’ for the wider footed lady and ‘Ebony’ as another lovely sandal. On the shoe front ‘Wardale’ has been a regular seller every season due to its versatility for problem feet.’ Welland’ has also done well as a lighter wide fitting shoe with its partially open front. ‘Libby’ on the other end of the style scale has also been an excellent addition, selling well.


Is the brand one of your best-sellers? Where does it stand price-wise? As it stands Sandpiper and Suave are easily within our top five best brands across all seasons. They are a standout brand for their category and we regularly have customers returning seasonally for more, with excellent brand recognition. Also given the reputation of our store for customer service and fitting we have many customers brought to us on recommendation due to extra-wide and troublesome feet and this contributes to the excellent performance of the brand. Suave, as a brand, is competitively priced against similar styles and


brands, whilst Sandpiper comes in at slightly above average for price but being a specialist shoe brand this is unsurprising. Customers know what they come to Sandpiper for and also know the cost of that specialisation.


Have you recommended the brand to other retailers? In terms of recommending the brand to other retailers, yes I would, although we haven't recommended them to anyone other than our customers. Why give away a good secret?


Please tell about the service you receive from the manufacturer? Sandpiper, as a company, are a delight to do business with. At the point of contact, their sales people are extremely knowledgeable about their own product and perfectly capable of suggesting styles that have similar attributes to products that customers have requested but we are unable to source. Their delivery service, even to our island, is incredibly prompt and quite often takes our customers by surprise when we call them back to inform them their shoes have arrived.


Contact: Heffords Footwear, | La Rue De L'eglise, | Jersey JE3 7AG | T: +44 1534 481702 16 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • JUNE/JULY 2018


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44