How can I find the right laces and polish for my shoes?
Have you ever measured the length of the laces in your shoes? They’re almost never the same length or weave or thickness as the replacement laces you can buy at the drugstore.
Same with the polish. The color of your brown dress shoes is never the same as commercially available brown polishes.
This is an opportunity for an enterprising shoe store.
I used to work in a shoe store, and the company wanted us to push the extra stuff. Polish, laces, those heel grip liners, shoe horns, and so on.
Most people don’t want to buy that stuff at the register because they don’t need it with their brand new shoes. You’re not going to need to polish those shoes for a little while.
Instead of pushing the sale in the store, make it easy for the customer to get exactly the right lace, the right polish, etc., when they need it. You could give them a QR code, or a card, or something, but who’s going to keep that?
Instead, put a code in the shoe that identifies the model, put a lookup function on your website to find the right accessories for that precise model, and tell the buyer this is a special service you offer to your customers. You make it easy for them to get what they need when they need it.
The benefits to the shoe company are enormous.
You find out some data on your products, like which shoes survive long enough that people bother with new laces.
Better still, you get an online record. When somebody buys those laces, you have a name, address, email address, and at least one example of the type of shoe that person likes.
I’m sure you can think of variations on this idea. The right replacement button for your overcoat. Replacement ink cartridges for that expensive pen.
The ultimate goal is to marry customer information you can collect in the store with customer information you collect online.
A customer data platform is the right place to do this. If you want to learn more about it, give me a call.
