Q&A Q&A Name: Twinkle Toes
Brands: Superfit, Bobux, Start Rite, Geox, Lelli Kelly, Skechers, Salamander Lurchi, Primigi, TTKids, Biomechanic, Garvalin, Bobell, Hummel, Camper, Old Soles, Salt Water
Home town: Sheffield
How did you get into footwear? Tell us about your background and your current business?
I am a Chemical Engineer. I worked in pharmacatical industry for years. I was responsible for developing emerging markets in the world at the time. That meant that I could be anywhere in the world working at any length of time until the job is done. I soon realised that I couldn’t help my young family if I continue working the same way and I really wanted to stay near my children.
Being a business person, you meet with so many people from different industries on your travels. I got offered a job from a Portuguese producer to penetrate to British market for their footwear. So, I started as a market researcher, and then continue to sell their shoes under my own brand in the UK. I worked as a wholesaler with supplying many horse and hound shows and retailers in the country. After foot and mouth disease, I transformed the business into retailing for children’s shoe store.
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? We are located in Sheffield and we have one shop currently and our online shop. We don’t have a high turnover of staff. We are four of us and all work full time together with two part time helpers. We are happy how we run our business currently.
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? It was quite scary to start with but soon we understood that this is not just a temporarily pandemic. This is going to stay with us for a while. We then adopted our business into the circumstances that we are in. We identified that customers were pushed to shop online and online shops were making enormous turnover even in Children’s business never mind in adult’s shoes. We worked very close with our customer base and develop our online services by giving our customers a bespoke experience. We are managing our business well and we are happy where we are at the moment despite the situation with Covid and other sad events that are happening in our world.
Do you have an online shop/website and do you use social networking for business? Was this active during the lockdown? As explained above about our online shop, I will move onto social networking. Yes, we are on facebook and Instagram so far as well as our own way of communicating with our customers. It was active during lockdown.
What’s selling well? Any particular trends? Which are your best- selling footwear brands – and why?
We have not changed with what we sell pre Covid and after Covid but just a bit more outdoor shoes than others which is understandable as we do socialise more outdoors than indoors nowadays. We sell all of our brands well; this is why we work with them. If a brand is not performing, we take a decision to withdraw from our range.
How important is shoe fitting to your business? Are you or any of your staff members of the Society Of Shoe Fitters? It is very important as we pride ourselves with our fitting. We also understand about the health of children’s feet. We are trained by Start Rite, but not Society of Shoe Fitters. I guess something that we need to be looking into.
Does your shop sell other items besides footwear, bags, gloves, tights, socks, below the ankle products? No
Do you use an EPOS (retail technology) system in your shop(s)? Yes
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