SUPER HOLLYWOOD: Famous Footwear Application

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Famous Footwear Application

Famous Footwear is a nationwide chain of retail stores in the United States dealing in branded footwear, generally at prices discounted from manufacturer's suggested prices. Established in 1960 as a single store, "Famous" is regarded as both a forerunner and champion of the trend towards the establishment of discount shopping malls in America. The chain is currently a division of the St. Louis-based Brown Shoe Company and maintains over 1,125 storefronts in 2010.

Today's Famous Footwear began in 1960 with the establishment of a single shoe store, Neil's Factory Shoe Outlet (launched as "Neil's Shoes"), in Madison, Wisconsin. The store was launched by a 29-year old named Neil Moldenhauer and was financed by a $10,000 loan.
In 1963, Neil's Factory Shoe Store hired a college student named Brian Cook as a stock boy, a man who would rise up the company ladder to become President of Famous Footwear in 1979. Nearly half a century later Cook recalled:

"We were one of the first factory outlets in the Midwest.... The store bought all closeouts and was primarily a women's store. The market had never seen anything like that... Most of the stores that shoppers went to were mom-and-pop stores, department stores were all very expensive, not at all like they are today. The market was wide open for big, open formats selling discount product. As a result, we started a rapid store expansion program. We ended up putting a lot of little stores out of business....

"Eventually, in the early 1990s, everybody was a discounter. Everyone was opening shoe stores like ours. Everyone copied our concept. We were groundbreaking and very revolutionary at the time, and not very popular with a lot of regular-priced retailers.