Q&A
something we wanted to do. Every cloud has a silver lining – we set up two business during the pandemic and since mid-May 2021, we have been the very proud owners of White & Son Shoes.
Where are your premises located and how many people do you employ? Do you have a high turnover of staff? Tell us about your shop(s), the local area, your customers, and their requirements? White & Son Shoes is located 400 metres from the seafront in the beautiful East Devon town of Sidmouth. White & Son Shoes has been present in this location for the last 10 years and prior to that Ivor Coram Shoes was in the same premises for approximately 20 years, so a shoe shop has been operating out of this location for the best part of 30 years. Sidmouth is a wonderfully affluent self-sufficient town with over 90% of the retail stores being occupied by independent retailers – at the time of writing this, there is less than 1% of the stores in the town empty. Along the seafront there are 9 hotels, 5 of which are 4-star hotels. With this comes a certain type of clientele, and one thing I have really noticed since owning the business is the amazing amount of loyalty from both local and regular visiting customers.
On buying the business we inherited Anne our Manageress and two part-time members of staff Liz and Mandy. We recently added Sally on a part time basis, and we are very lucky to have such dedicated and patient members of staff who are a real asset to our business. As a generally older population live and visit Sidmouth, we ensure that all customers are treated with a warm welcome and throughout their time in the store we will ensure a conversational approach is always used – sometimes this will be the only conversation a few of our customers will have that day, so we always try and engage fully with everyone.
How has Covid-19 impacted your business? Tell us about your experiences, the difficulties you have encountered and how you have managed/are managing/trying to overcome these?
Covid provided us with an opportunity that we weren’t expecting. The retirement of the previous owner was in truth probably brought on by the Covid pandemic, so one chapter closed and a new one opened. Our first day of owning the business was the 17th of May 2021, which actually coincided with the first day that hotels were allowed to re-open since the Covid lockdown. Retailing was strange with customers coming back to stay in Sidmouth for the first time in many, many months, and masks in full existence along with sanitising stations dotted around the store, but the welcome we received as the new owners of the business from both our local and visiting regulars was amazing and continues to be so. Without exception, everyone was so pleased that their favourite traditional independent footwear retailer was still going and had survived the overwhelming challenges of Covid.
Do you have an online shop/website, and do you use social networking for business? Was this active during the lockdown? At the moment we don’t have an online presence, but this is a serious consideration for 2023. We have amazing loyal customers from all over the UK who visit Sidmouth for holidays, and we would like to give them the opportunity to purchase from the comfort of their own homes. Nothing can beat the personal touch we offer in store, but we would like to cast our net wider.
For now, we are active on Instagram and Facebook to showcase our wonderful products and window changes.
What’s selling well? Any particular trends? Which are your best- selling footwear brands – and why?
One of our new brands, that we introduced for AW23, that has had good initial pickup is Strive. Our customers have responded particularly well to the combination of styling and the anatomically shaped footbed that offers the right amount of support and comfort. Other brands that are performing well are Skechers, Josef Seibel, Rieker
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