PROFILE
Independent Footwear Retailer of the Month
Jack Cheeseman, Footwear Today Editor, talks to independent footwear retailer, Heidi Rushton from Rubyshoesday in West Yorkshire.
Q&A
Name: Heidi Rushton Shop: Rubyshoesday, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire
Brands: Jungla, El Naturalista (barefoot styles specifically), Waldlaufer, Softinos, Art, Birkenstock, Heavenly Feet.
Q: How did you get into footwear? Tell us about your background and your current business? A: Myself and Vicky Butcher are Co-Owners of the business. We had both moved from Manchester to Hebden Bridge, me coming from
a background of sales and Vicky from nursing and psychology. In the early 2000s we both owned our own cafés in Hebden Bridge; my business supplied Vicky’s with organic fruit and veg for juicing and born out of that we decided to open the shoe shop together!
We opened Rubyshoesday in November
2006. We ran the organic produce shop and the shoe shop simultaneously for a year or so, but Vicky had a hunch there was a market for an interesting, quality shoe shop offering something different compared to the mainstream stores on the high street. Hebden Bridge already had a reputation for independent shops; being half way between Manchester and Leeds it’s vibrant and busy with footfall, while online shopping wasn’t a thing at that time. So we felt that we were taking a calculated risk; we got a £20,000 bank loan and bought a lot of stock before we had premises – such is the nature of forward ordering!
Q: Tell us about your shop, the local area, your customers and their requirements? A: Now we are about to enter our 20th year in business! In 2011 we launched our website, which currently accounts for about 25 per cent of our business, but still a lot of our customers want to visit our shop and we have a very high level of returning customers both in store and online. In 2014 we opened a second shop in
Ambleside in the Lake District. It was a great addition to all the outdoor shops in the area, but unfortunately post-Brexit there has been a
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