Word: shoes
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...Public Radio, APR'S bread-and-butter is broadcasting local cultural programming across the country via satellite. Indeed, through its Los Angeles affiliate, the network broadcast 20 events of the Olympic Arts Festival in full, including three Royal Opera performances. And they have done it all on a shoe-string budget of $775,000, with a full-time staff of ten hardy souls at their modest St. Paul headquarters...
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...
Despite its fast growth, Reyers still manages to keep service on a personal level, even on Saturdays, when the store is chaotic. Customers select styles from shoes on display, but then one of Reyers' 88 salespeople is there to help with the fitting. One of them is Larry Joltin, 41, the hottest shoe salesman in America. Joltin sells nearly $500,000 worth of men's shoes a year, roughly a pair every 15 minutes. In 1982, he walked away with the National Shoe Retailers Association award. His $424,848 worth of sales put him so far ahead...