Footwear Insight

14 • Footwear Insight ~ September/October 2018 I n many ways, Michael Levinson is like every vendor and retailer's plumber, electrician and handyman wrapped into one. Someone you have on speed dial when a supply chain issue, no matter the severity, arises. "If it's a problem that can be fixed, we return over 90 percent [of merchandise sent to us] to Grade A quality," says Levinson, the senior director of sales and marketing for Quality Corrections & Inspections, the largest re-work opera- tion in the U.S. with facilities in Pennsylvania and Henderson, NV. "When a vendor or retailer has merchandise that's supposed to be on the shelf and it's not, they want the product back yester- day," he recently remarked during a Sports Insight Extra podcast. "We are a company that works in yesterday." While QCI re-works all types of products — adding a button to a garment or more holes to thousands of belts are but two examples — footwear is the 32-year old company's mainstay. "Mold remediation, a phrase no one likes to talk about, is one of the largest issues we face," remarks Levinson. "We once had 150,000 pairs that had to be cleaned for mold and we turned them around in four weeks." QCI, which opened its Henderson facility in 2005 to supplement its initial Duncansville, PA operation founded in 1986 by former H.H. Brown executive Ron Burke, employs 150 to 200 permanent workers between the two sites with seasonal help fluctuating. "We never know what we're going to get," professes Levinson. "The problem comes in and there it is in front of us. We draft a cost-effective solution for whatever walks through our doors. So, what is a challenge to the vendor or retailer, is often an opportunity for us." Still, sometimes, some footwear problems, an inherent flaw in a leather or material, are outside the realm of re-work pos- sibility. In those instances, QCI offers an inspection and sorting service to "help save" as many pairs as possible. One of QCI's latest efforts, a pilot program with Spanish espadrille maker Viscata, is ready to expand with an ecom- merce component. "They [Viscata] were seeing a 30-35 percent return rate with products, not due to quality issues but by how the consumer is using e-commerce to buy multiple shoes, making sure they have the right size before returning the two pairs that don't fit. This is presenting quite a dilemma for these shoe vendors and most of the third-party logistics folks who don't have the manpower or know-how about how to bring a shoe back and return it to first-quality," remarks Levinson. QCI has been accepting all of Viscata's returns — grading them, cleaning them and re-stuffing them before returning them to distribution. It is the type of work that was previously done in the backrooms of brick-and-mortar stores, Levinson notes. To learn more about QCI, listen to the recent Sports Insight Extra podcast on the SportsInsightExtra.com podcast page. l footwearinsight.com Michael Levinson, senior director of sales and maketing for re-work specialists Quality Corrections & Inspections. Just Call Him 'Mr. Fix-it' INTERVIEW THE FOOTWEAR EYE Listen to a Sports Insight Extra podcast with QCI's Michael Levinson at sportsinsightextra.com/podcast.html yoursole.com Great for your feet, easy on the planet. The perfect post-run recovery flip. Styles shown above available Spring 2019. SEE OUR FW19 COLLECTION, OUR BIGGEST FOOTWEAR DROP TO DATE! Visit us at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, The Running Event, Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show and Atlanta Shoe Market. Email sales@yoursole.com to book your appointment.

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