Word: shoeing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Luring thousands of customers to a shoe store in Sharon...
Another sale looms at Reyers Shoe Store in Sharon, Pa., and that is a little like saying another leaf is falling from another tree in autumn. Reyers has sales almost constantly. Next week, for example, is the fall sale. There are more sales before Thanksgiving and before Christmas. Finally comes the January clearance, in which everything that did not get sold in the previous sales goes on sale...
These price-cutting binges are a sign not of desperation but of acutely smart merchandising. Though Sharon is an old steel town, with a population of just 19,057 in a county with an unemployment rate of 13%, Reyers has grown to become one of the largest independent shoe stores in the U.S. It draws 1,000 to 3,000 customers a day, some coming from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, 75 miles away. This year, its 99th, it will record annual sales of $6 million to $8 million (vs. $355,000 for the average shoe retailer...
Reyers advertises heavily, spending about $130,000 a year on television, radio, newspapers and coupons. But its success is due mainly to its enormous inventory: 125,000 pairs of shoes, ranging from Hush Puppies and Thorn McAn to Bally and Anne Klein, and 376 styles of athletic shoes. The store stocks 150 patterns in men's size 13AA alone, and women's sizes run from 3 to 13 in eleven widths from AAAAA to EEE. Such selection, plus enthusiastic salespeople, generates intense customer loyalty. So far this year, Cecelia Veal has made three trips to Reyers from Akron...
...This shoe supermarket is the creation of Harry Jubelirer, 65. He and his father, a shoe-store owner, went into business together in Homestead, Pa., after World War II. The younger Jubelirer was so laced up in the shoe business that he and his wife Natalie spent their honeymoon in Puerto Rico visiting shoe stores. In January 1954, the father and son bought Reyers, which had operated profitably in Sharon since 1885. Jubelirer bought more fashionable shoes and later quadrupled floor space, a risky move because Sharon's downtown was already on the verge of decline. "I was scared...