Shoe Zone

Shoe Zone
Formerly called
 Bensonshoe
Private
Industry Footwear
Founded July 21, 1917 (1917-07-21) in Leicester, United Kingdom
Founders
  • Michael Smith
  • Christopher Smith
Headquarters Humberstone Road, Leicester, United Kingdom
Number of locations
 519 (2017)
Areas served
Key people
  • Anthony Smith (EO)
  • Nick Davis (CEO)
  • Charles Smith (COO)
  • Jonathan Fearn (CFO)
Members 9[1] (2016)
Number of employees
 4,100 (2017)
Website www.shoezone.com

Shoe Zone (stylised as shoezone) is a footwear retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland which sells shoes at low prices. It has over 500 stores in different cities and towns throughout the UK and Ireland and over 4,000 employees. The company has an annual turnover of £239 million. The company's headquarters are located on Humberstone Road in Leicester next to the railway.

History

A branch of Stead & Simpson in Bradford, that has been closed for the Westfield Bradford development.

The company was founded in 1917 under the name Bensonshoe by Michael and Christopher Smith.(Edit: How is this possible? It would make them over 100 years old and still counting...)(Edit: Bensonshoe was already an established company when Michael and Christopher purchased it in 1980)[2][3] It was acquired by the Smith family in 1919.(Not true)[2] The company acquired Leicester based Tylers in 1986 adding a further 61 branches to the business.[2] By 2000, the company had 184 branches and late that year acquired The Oliver Group plc which added a further 258 stores to its portfolio.[2]

On 8 September 2007, Shoe Zone bought the shoe retailer, Shoefayre, for an undisclosed sum from its parent, The Co-operative Group, adding 300 stores to Shoe Zone's portfolio.[2] On 28 November 2009, it bought Leicester-based Stead & Simpson and converted many stores to the Shoe Zone brand.

Operations

The company sells approximately 20 million pairs of footwear per year.[4] Shoe Zone also has a small charity branch known as the Shoe Zone Trust which donates a proportion of the company's profits to cancer research and charitable organisations, they also helped Children In Need raise nearly £200,000.

References

  1. ↑ https://www.shoezone.com/Investors/AboutUs/Our-People#
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Our History | Shoe Zone
  3. ↑ "Shoe Zone plc". www.shoezone.com. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
  4. ↑ https://www.shoezone.com/Investors/AboutUs/What-we-do
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