PAYLESS SHOESOURCE, INC. is the largest specialty family footwear retailer in the Western Hemisphere. The company was founded in 1956 in Topeka, Kan., on a revolutionary idea - selling shoes in a self-select environment. More than 50 years later, Payless® serves millions of customers through its powerful network of more than 4,500 stores, in a variety of retail settings, in all 50 U.S. states, as well as in Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. In fiscal 2006, Payless sold nearly 180 million pairs of shoes, generating $2.8 billion in net sales.
In June 2005, Matt Rubel joined Payless as the Chief Executive Officer and President, bringing his strategic leadership and expertise in the footwear, accessory and fashion industries, marketing, merchandising and brand development to Payless. Rubel has a strong history with brands serving in key roles at such companies as Cole Haan, J. Crew and Revlon.
The Payless team has created an energized, customer-centric organization dedicated to democratizing fashion and design in footwear and accessories to inspire fun, fashion possibilities for the family. Payless is executing a House of Brands business strategy aimed at offering well-recognized brands featuring the latest on-trend styles offered at a great price in a fun, inspiring shopping environment.
In the past two years, the Payless team has achieved many important initiatives:
Expanding brand portfolio
Through licensing arrangements or acquisitions the brand portfolio offered in Payless stores continues to expand and today includes Airwalk®, American Eagle™, Champion®, Spalding®, Tailwind™, Dexter®, Hannah Montana, Shaquille O'Neal-endorsed Dunkman™ and Dunkman™ Game Shoes, and a co-branded line of authentic dance shoes with American Ballet Theatre™ called ABT for Spotlights™.
Designer collections
Through relationships with New York-based fashion designers, Payless has designer collections featuring original designs including Abaete for Payless, designed by Laura Poretzky, Lela Rose for Payless designed by Lela Rose, alice + olivia™ for Payless® by Stacey Bendet, and the Patricia Field for Payless by 2006 Oscar® nominee and renowned stylist Patricia Field. Through these arrangements Payless collaborates with the designers to unveil the footwear and accessory collections on the runway at New York Fashion Week, and later offers the collections in select Payless stores and on Payless.com®. Payless' designer collections are among the most broadly distributed designer footwear lines available in the U.S. today.
Payless design team
Payless now has a footwear and accessory design team in New York City dedicated to developing original product designs supporting the retailer's seasonal collection of on-trend fashion products for the women's, men's and kids' categories. The team is headed by Robert Mingione, who most recently was at Kenneth Cole. The head of women's design is Bernard Figueroa, most recently at Michael Kors.
Fun, inspiring store formats
In July 2006, Payless launched the Payless Fashion Lab™ and Hot Zone store formats. All new Payless stores feature one of these two formats, which center on a self-select shopping environment and are intended to let shoppers have fun and experiment with fashion by letting them more quickly find the styles they love. The fashion lab design is completely new and has re-invented self-select shoe shopping. This store format allows shoppers to shop by product/trend story versus the racked-by-size format long used by Payless. Hot Zone formats marry the opened up front of store display area of fashion lab with the traditional racking systems. The Payless Fashion Lab format is helping Payless secure locations in high-fashion malls and other premier shopping areas such as New York's Fifth Ave. and SoHo; San Francisco Centre near Union Square; Valley Fair Mall, Santa Clara, Calif.; Houston Galleria; and Dallas Galleria, among others.
New logo
Payless launched a new logo in June of 2006, the first redesign of the Payless logo in about 20 years. The logo communicates a "new and improved" Payless -- a brand that is contemporary, fun, friendly and, above all, stylish.
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