The Problem With Selling Shoes

At a small luncheon for investors in luxury stocks yesterday the subject of why some companies, like Louis Vuitton, haven't made more of an impact in the shoe sector, when it appears to be one that could easily take over handbags as the next hot accessory. The answer sounds almost silly in its simplicity. Shoes are really, really hard to make. Not flat shoes, per se, but high heeled shoes. No one has really been able to master the technique as well as the Italians. Factor in the added inventory (with bags one size fits all) and the higher standards in comfort (a poorly made skirt won't leave you bleeding) and it is a product line one does not enter without trepidation. Particularly if, like Vuitton, you have double digit growth without it.

Currently Prada controls between 9 and 10 percent of the luxury shoe market. What's their key to success? Here's a bit of trivia: C.E.O Patrizio Bertelli had his shoe factory and produced shoes under the brand names Granello and Sir Robert before he met Miuccia and paired his factory to her brand. Both of his brands have been discontinued, but he seized on a pretty simple idea that he put in place at Prada. Keep the same lasts and rotate them between the brands. The last is a solid mould that a shoe is built around. Toes and heels and the other bits can be altered easily -- it is the last that is the tough nut to crack. Once you have one that works, customers can walk into a store and know what size they'll wear and be reassured that the shoes will almost certainly be as comfortable as others they have bought from the company.

Bertelli did another smart thing. In the 1990s, while he was buying big brands like Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, he was also travelling the Marche region of Italy buying up and signing deals with shoe factories that specializied in high end high heels. Now he can have the upper -- the stylish part of the shoe -- sewn in Eastern Eurpoe and still guarantee that customers will still experience the same fit.