Many of us love collecting and wearing shoes. But what does it take to launch your own shoe line? Is it possible in today’s crowded footwear market? Absolutely. The shoe market is constantly evolving and people are always looking for the next cool shoe brand to buy. To help you break into this market, here are a few essential steps to launching your shoe brand.
Find your niche
It’s important to thoroughly research the shoe market and work out where your product will fit in. Ideally, you want to target a niche audience – a general wear shoe will be much harder to market and may end up failing to stand out.
Just what are some examples of niche shoes? A few niche ideas could include:
- Shoes for specific sports (e.g. tennis, weightlifting)
- Shoes for people with certain health problems or disabilities
- Shoes for a specific subculture (like goths or ravers)
- A unique spin on a classic shoe style such as brogues or boat shoes
- Shoes with an ethical focus such as being made from recycled or sustainable materials
- A new novelty shoe (like bubble sliders or Big Red Boots).
Build your brand
A memorable brand is necessary to help sell your shoe. This includes coming up with a catchy brand name, an easily identifiable logo and possibly even a slogan.
Take the time to look at other brands for inspiration. Make sure that your brand isn’t too similar to any other footwear brands on the market.
Design your shoe
The design process is very important and there are many things to consider. It’s likely you may already have a rough idea for a style in mind. You’ll need to fine-tune this and consider all the practical aspects such as what material to use. Will you opt for traditional materials like leather and rubber? Or will you explore more specialist materials like closed cell foam?
It’s worth taking the time to come up with different designs that you can then test with prototypes. A focus group could be worth assembling to test your shoes and suggest improvements. Once you’ve established a final design, you can then start manufacturing.
Choose a manufacturer
There are many options when it comes to manufacturing your shoes. You could choose a local manufacturer or an overseas manufacturer. Alternatively, you could set up your own factory and handle manufacturing yourself.
Private label manufacturers are a good option for most shoe startups. These are manufacturers that specialize in shoes, however, they may be better suited to more general shoe shapes rather than alternative shoe shapes.
Launch your shoe
When launching your shoe, you want to set a launch date and build up as much excitement as you can through marketing. Start by building a website and consider adding a countdown until your launch. You should then consider creating social media accounts for your shoe brand and possibly doing some advertising through these platforms.
Work with models to create fun photoshoots. You could also consider video adverts. Focus on promoting what is unique about your brand in order to build attention and be prepared to spend lots of money to get your adverts out there.
A launch party could be worth throwing to help promote the launch of your shoe. See if you can get some fashion journalists or bloggers to come along as they may be able to help build more exposure for your shoe company.