Foot Shop Ltd, the company behind the Cosyfeet and Walktall
brands has undergone a management buyout for an undisclosed sum.
David Price, owner and founder of the business has sold the
company to members of Foot Shop’s executive board, including
Andrew Peirce, managing director; Jackie Bemmer, finance
director; Jim Lockyer, Walktall brand director and web director,
and Nick Brine, operations director.
The deal, which was concluded on 1st June, did not include Foot
Shop’s full-service agency, the Full English, which has been
absorbed into another business separate to Foot Shop.
The new owners do not predict major changes in the direction of
the business, and state that the company will continue to operate
as before from its base in the village of Street, in Somerset.
Since 2010, however, the business has already undergone a major
refocusing. In August 2010, Foot Shop closed its footwear website
Lookatmycrazyshoes.com, which specialised in selling Crocs.
“It was a sensible decision,” says managing director
Andrew Peirce. With Lookatmycrazyshoes, he explains, the company
was operating in a market that had become saturated quickly.
“There were lots of other companies selling the same
product, price was a given [dictated by the brand owner] so we
were competing on marketing. For a relatively low margin product,
it was heavy on time.”
Foot Shop is best known for its flagship Cosyfeet title, selling
extra-roomy footwear for people with swollen or bandaged feet and
ankles. Its products also include a range of own-brand specialist
socks, hosiery and foot-care products. As part of the initiative
to focus on the core offering, Foot Shop stopped producing Hip to
Toe, its catalogue for hosiery and “non-shoe” items.
Now, to avoid diluting the brand, there’s just one Cosyfeet
title, with customers receiving different editions, including
hosiery. “It’s a means of keeping in contact with our best
customers without them having to flick through 144 pages of shoes
every time they receive a catalogue,” says Peirce. At
Cosyfeet, the catalogue remains very important to the business,
but Foot Shop is seeing more and more orders placed online, with
the web “our biggest area of growth,” says Peirce,
who has set an ultimate target of achieving 40 per cent of sales
online.
Cosyfeet also has a thriving wholesale business, with mobility
stores, for example, stocking Cosyfeet footwear. It produces a
healthcare professional catalogue too, for doctors, nurses and
other medical professionals to distribute at their surgeries and
clinics. A minority of healthcare professionals also have their
own retail offering, selling Cosyfeet products to their patients.
In terms of brand values, says Peirce, “the recommended
route is very important to us,” and Cosyfeet is keen to
maintain an active link in this area.
Foot Shop’s other brand Walktall, specialising in men’s shoes in
sizes 12 to 19, is also doing well, having doubled in size over
the last three years. When Foot Shop acquired Walktall in 2005,
the brand had a catalogue and website. After finding difficulties
producing a catalogue due to problems securing enough stock, Foot
Shop moved away from print to web. More recently, says Peirce,
Walktall has made a return to mailings, keeping in touch with its
customers through flyers to drive online activity.
Best foot forward
Although Foot Shop Ltd has seen steady growth in the last three
years, Peirce is cautious about the outlook, acutely aware that
even the usually resilient grey market is susceptible to economic
downturns. In 2010, the business recorded a turnover of £13
million, and Peirce expects a similar figure this year. Profit in
2010 improved significantly on 2009; excluding impairments and
one-off costs associated with the closure of Lookatmycrazyshoes,
Peirce says that profit doubled. For 2011, he’s expecting a
modest profit increase. He says that the company’s
diversification in recent years may have slightly hurt profit
growth, as the “development of other brands costs a lot of
time and money”.
Now the plan is firmly to grow core business, with Foot Shop
particularly looking to invest in the fulfilment process, and
improving and growing the product mix.
The new owners will also tackle improvements in wholesale,
through building key accounts and strengthening Cosyfeet’s brand
presence. “Our shop in Street has £500,000 turnover so
people clearly like to try things on,” explains Peirce.
“For those customers who don’t shop through mail order we
have to improve and enhance our wholesale presence.”
Other initiatives include further developing Walktall into a
recognisable name, and as such the company has moved into
own-label goods, starting with plimsolls and boat shoes.
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