Custom shoe retailer falls prey to online consumer trends
Shoes of Prey is ceasing operations after learning some tough lessons about one-to-one retailing.
In a post on the blogging site Medium, Shoes of Prey founder Michael Fox announces that the company has closed its doors. Launched in Australia in 2009, Shoes of Prey specialized in allowing customers to digitally customize their footwear. In the U.S., the company partnered with Nordstrom to offer in-store design studios that included digital wall displays and interactive touchscreen tablets.
However, as Fox openly discusses in his blog post, Shoes of Prey discovered that mainstream consumers are not interested in that level of personalization, at least for footwear.
“We learnt the hard way that mass market customers don’t want to create, they want to be inspired and shown what to wear,” Fox said in the post. “They want to see the latest trends, what celebrities and Instagram influencers are wearing and they want to wear exactly that — both the style and the brand. They don’t want to invest time in creating a product themselves, and attempts to have them do this, even in small ways, leads to the paradox of choice kicking in causing decision paralysis, in turn lowering conversion rates.”
Following this discovery (which followed initial success serving a niche market of women who are passionate about customizing their shoes), Shoes of Prey attempted to pivot its business. The company decided to focus on customers with small, wide or narrow feet – according to Fox 76% of women should be wearing narrow or wide shoe sizes – and providing short, fast-run manufacturing for other footwear brands.
Due to operational complexities, high fixed costs and higher unit costs resulting from manufacturing shoes in its own factory outside of China, Shoes of Prey could not turn a profit with these new focus areas for its business.
Fox concludes by thanking customers and investors, and urging anyone thinking of starting a consumer-facing business to perform the right type of research that will reveal what customers truly want.
“If I ever find myself in a position where I’m attempting to change consumer behavior, I will ensure I’ve peeled back the layers to truly understand the psychology of my target customer” said Fox.
In a post on the blogging site Medium, Shoes of Prey founder Michael Fox announces that the company has closed its doors. Launched in Australia in 2009, Shoes of Prey specialized in allowing customers to digitally customize their footwear. In the U.S., the company partnered with Nordstrom to offer in-store design studios that included digital wall displays and interactive touchscreen tablets.
However, as Fox openly discusses in his blog post, Shoes of Prey discovered that mainstream consumers are not interested in that level of personalization, at least for footwear.
“We learnt the hard way that mass market customers don’t want to create, they want to be inspired and shown what to wear,” Fox said in the post. “They want to see the latest trends, what celebrities and Instagram influencers are wearing and they want to wear exactly that — both the style and the brand. They don’t want to invest time in creating a product themselves, and attempts to have them do this, even in small ways, leads to the paradox of choice kicking in causing decision paralysis, in turn lowering conversion rates.”
Following this discovery (which followed initial success serving a niche market of women who are passionate about customizing their shoes), Shoes of Prey attempted to pivot its business. The company decided to focus on customers with small, wide or narrow feet – according to Fox 76% of women should be wearing narrow or wide shoe sizes – and providing short, fast-run manufacturing for other footwear brands.
Due to operational complexities, high fixed costs and higher unit costs resulting from manufacturing shoes in its own factory outside of China, Shoes of Prey could not turn a profit with these new focus areas for its business.
Fox concludes by thanking customers and investors, and urging anyone thinking of starting a consumer-facing business to perform the right type of research that will reveal what customers truly want.
“If I ever find myself in a position where I’m attempting to change consumer behavior, I will ensure I’ve peeled back the layers to truly understand the psychology of my target customer” said Fox.