Shoe Marketing
If there’s one thing I’ve learned on the business beat hear at Shalampax Speaks it’s that you should never underestimate the power of good marketing to boost profitability, or the power of bad marketing to kill it.
Take The Shalampax Shoe Store as an example. When Buttcrack opened her store a little over ten years ago she ordered, among other items, a very large inventory of one particular type of shoe. For ten years, that shoe didn’t sell; not a single pair.
Other types of shoes sold, but not that one.
Buttcrack was stuck with a huge inventory that she had already paid for, but for which she had not yet earned a cent of revenue. She tried drastically reducing the price on this type of shoe, but no one was interested no matter how low the price was.
The shoes were taking up valuable space. And history hadn’t left her with much hope of ever clearing them out. Her first thought was to cut her losses and throw them into the ocean.
However, before she did that Buttcrack got the bright Idea of doing a little market research. It wasn’t anything formal. She just asked her customers why they wouldn’t buy that particular type of shoe.
The answers she got back were all along the lines of, “it doesn’t suit my lifestyle” or “I can’t imagine any occasion when I would have any use for that sort of shoe.”
Did Buttcrack give up? No she did not! Instead, she used some good marketing sense.
Buttcrack had some stickers printed up that she pasted over the shoe boxes. Now, rather than selling “running shoes” she was selling “leisure shoes.”
Running isn’t something anyone here ever does. Leisure is something we do as often as possible.
Sales took off—and all at a large mark-up over original full price. Not only did she sell out her entire stock of “leisure shoes,” formerly known as “running shoes,” but she also has hundreds of backorders.
Buttcrack ordered more of this type of shoe from her supplier for the first time in ten years—and a big order, at that. She has already sold out that order, well before it has arrived. People are even willing to accept the wrong size if that will get them a pair.
It just goes to show you: When it comes to marketing, reality is meaningless and perception is everything.
That’s all for now folks. I’m heading for my comfy couch, where I’ll turn on the TV and rest my leisure shoe-clad feet on the ottoman while I enjoy a beautiful afternoon of snoozing and viewing. I’m glad Buttcrack told me about her leisure shoes before releasing that information to the general public.
Superb marketing move! And truly, my running shoes spend more time in leisure activities than in running too.
Do Shalampaxians wear their leisure shoes with their leisure suits? That would be totally retro and quite trendy according to the fashion magazines.
@Patricia: Yes, why would anyone want to run when they can leisure?
@David: For the most part, we women and the men here don’t wear suits. But everything we wear is, almost by definition, leisure wear. So if we wear something that can, in the broadest sense of the term, be classified as a suit, then it is a leisure suit (although probably not what you have in mind) and, yes, we would wear our leisure shoes with them.