All Shoe Zone articles
Shoe Zone is a value-oriented footwear retailer trading through around 500 outlets across the UK and around 20 in Ireland. The business sells around 18 million pairs of shoes per year, with an average cost of £10 per pair. The company started when brothers Michael and Christopher Smith bought Bensonshoe in 1980. Since then, the business has expanded through acquisitions of brands such as Tyler, The Oliver Group, Shoefayre and Stead & Simpson, adding substantially to its stores portfolio.
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News
Sainsbury’s, Shoe Zone and Specsavers stores were attacked during far-right riots
Sainsbury’s, Shoezone and Specsavers across England were attacked and looted as the shops were caught in the crossfire of ongoing far-right riots in the country.
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News
Shoe Zone blames profit warning on poor weather and Red Sea
Footwear retailer Shoe Zone issued a profit warning today as the combination of weakened demand and ongoing Red Sea challenges take their toll.
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News
Shoe Zone lowers guidance as profits flatten
Footwear retailer Shoe Zone has lowered its full-year profit guidance. Revenues may have edged up but profits remained flat during the first half.
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News
Shoe Zone profits rise following strong key period trading
Shoe Zone has posted a rise in full-year profits after ”strong and consistent results throughout the key trading periods.”
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News
Shoe Zone ups profit guidance as demand climbs
Shoe Zone has increased its profit guidance by almost a third as demand for value soars during the cost-of-living crisis.
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Data
Ranking: The fastest-growing value retailers revealed
In the cost-of-living crisis, affordable retailers have never been more relevant to price-conscious consumers, but which have been making the most of the mood of the nation? And which are set to turn market share into future growth? To find out, the Retail Week analyst team has tracked group sales across 15 of the biggest value retailers and analysed their compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to predict how much bigger they’ll be in five years’ time
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News
Shoe Zone sales and profits rise after ‘very positive year’
Shoe Zone achieved a rise in revenues and earnings last year, when stores performed strongly.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Shoe Zone (SWOT)
Shoe Zone is the largest value-based footwear retailer in the UK. Despite a long-running store closure programme, which has accelerated of late, it still has an extensive presence of more than 350 stores. This gives the retailer a big advantage when it comes to multichannel.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Shoe Zone (Strategy)
Shoe Zone has three pillars to its strategy: grow large format stores, bolster its digital proposition and town centre renewal.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Stores at Shoe Zone
Shoe Zone is actively managing its store portfolio, opening more large stores and shutting small unprofitable units. Targeting key towns for conversion or relocation, the retailer is ultimately looking to double the number of Big Box locations to around 100 and increase the number of Hybrid stores to 150.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Technology strategy at Shoe Zone
Driving digital growth is a key strategy for Shoe Zone.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Shoe Zone (People)
Shoe Zone continues to be led by members of the Smith family, who originally acquired the business when it was still known as Benson Shoe, with Charles Smith as chairman and Anthony Smith as CEO.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Shoe Zone (Overview)
Shoe Zone is streamlining its store portfolio, focusing on the development of larger format (Big Box) stores, which are more profitable, as well as developing a more premium Hybrid format for its high street estate, as part of an increased focus on multichannel.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Shoe Zone (Financials)
While Shoe Zone sales still remain slightly short of pre-pandemic levels, the retailer notched up a 31.1% increase in total sales to £156.2m in the year to 1 October 2022 (FY2022) as its stores were able to trade for the full year against just 36 weeks of trading in FY2021 in line with lockdown measures.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Ecommerce at Shoe Zone
Digital continues to be a key area of focus for Shoe Zone. The retailer had been gradually developing its multichannel offer with in-store kiosks, a low-cost returns model and web exclusives. Things have moved up a gear more recently, however, with the creation of an autonomous digital department to drive higher growth.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Customer and marketing at Shoe Zone
Shoe Zone has focused on a no-frills shopping experience that is conducive to its value proposition. Described as ‘the Aldi of footwear’, maintaining its price competitiveness and endeavouring to price match on any crossover product lines is a key focus for the company.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Shoe Zone (Outlook)
Shoe Zone’s staunch value stance should serve it well during the current cost-of living crisis, while its much-improved FY2022 performance underlines the progress the retailer is making in reshaping its store portfolio to reflect current trading patterns and improve profitability, with a focus on its new Big Box and Hybrid store formats.
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Retail Navigator Analysis
Supply chain at Shoe Zone
Shoe Zone’s supply chain has been given a shake up to enable it to have a single view of stock.