Q&A
Independent Footwear Retailer of the Month
Jack Cheeseman, Footwear Today Editor, talks to independent footwear retailer, Louise Crush, of Just Shoes in Kent.
Q&A
Name: Louise Crush Shop: Just Shoes etc, Whitstable, Kent
Brands: Caprice, Laura Vita, Lunar, Pikolinos, Reiker, Tamaris.
Q: How did you get into footwear? Tell us about your background and your current business? A: I fell into retail at the grand old age of 17 by covering someone’s holiday whilst I trained to be a dancer! Fortunately for me the company that I covered for offered me a position as an Area Manager overseeing concessions. I then worked my way through some fantastic retail brands on the high street, with 10 years at River Island, giving me excellent breeding to take on the role of Regional Manager for Schuh footwear – a role and company which I loved with a passion! It was a spur of the moment decision to go it alone and I haven’t looked
back since. I had boutiques and I was fortunate enough to take on an existing footwear shop in Whitstable (Just Shoes) which had successfully been trading for 25 years. I can remember walking past the shop on a daily basis thinking “I’d love to get my hands on that business to see what I could do with it”… and that was 15 years ago!
Q: Tell us about your shop, the local area, your customers and their requirements? A: We call the shop the Tardis as it is very small (but beautifully formed) and whenever we go to trade shows and I pick up new brands I give the Manager, Kate, a heart attack as all she can think about is where all the new stock is going to go!
We are so lucky to be based in the seaside town of Whitstable and it feels
great to be part of the community. We have a very seasonal trade pattern with plenty of visitors in the Summer, which is fantastic, but also difficult to buy for when you have to take the weather into consideration. I tend to trust my gut and buy for the targets that I set the girls in the shop, and not think about bad weather being a problem. The demographic of our customer is pretty diverse, from 18 to 80 (I think our oldest customer is 94!). If I was to describe the shop I would say it has a European flavour with old school values in regards to service. We have our regular local customers and our twice yearly seasonal buyers, with a mix of Summer visitors. Unfortunately after Covid we lost quite a few regular customers to online so we have been working hard to draw them back and add new ones to the mix.
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