Footwear Insight

60 • Footwear Insight ~ January / February 2019 footwearinsight.com I s there a secret to retail longevity? John Luck thinks he might know the answer. "You know, I think the primary reason that we've stayed in business for 100 years is that our business is constantly chang- ing. We've had Rockport stores, Ecco stores, we had an SAS store, and we have constantly updated and stayed on top of the business and kept it growing," Luck, president of Fairlawn, OH-based Lucky Shoes, says. "Part of the reason that it's successful today is that it doesn't look a whole lot like it looked five years ago. " The original Lucky Store was founded in 1919 by Ukranian immigrant Joe Luck, who moved from New York to Firestone Park in Akron, OH — then a newly established community for workers at the Firestone Rubber plant and one of the fastest growing towns in the country. As the business was taken over first by Joe's sons, Milton and Leonard, and then later by Milton's son, Tom, the current owner of the business, those evolutions continued. The company's first shoe-only store was opened in 1955 in Fairlawn, which set the retailer's current course. Today, Lucky Shoes operates four stores under the Lucky name, eight New Balance doors, two Stride Rite booteries, and two standalone Vionic doors, the newest addition to its portfolio, which opened in 2016. As it happens, the Vionic stores are the only ones of their kind — the comfort brand had been considering piloting its own retail when Luck approached them looking to partner. And, he says, it's been the kind of decision that's paid off. "We felt Vionic was an up-and-coming brand and our business was really good and the brand was really expanding categories, so we felt like we could put a Vionic store into [one of our open locations] and it would work fantastic," Luck says. "We opened a second in April of last year and we're looking to open more as quickly as possible." Luck says branching out with the Vionic partnership is a telling indi- cator of the way retail runs today. The pace of the business has "definitely speeded up," he says. "There's a brand that, three years ago, was the best-selling brand in Lucky Shoes. And we have zero pairs on order for spring. And Vionic, we opened a store with them in March of 2017, but in 2016 it wasn't [even] one of our biggest vendors. We went from doing $100,000 in business in 2016 to having two stores and having it be one of the best-selling brands in all Lucky doors. That's meteoric." With the market moving faster than ever, Luck says the team at Lucky's Staying Lucky It takes more than chance to thrive — just ask the Lucks. Lucky Shoes Fairlawn, OH Founder: Joe Luck Leadership: Tom Luck, owner John Luck, president No. of stores: 16 in Ohio across all nameplates No. of employees: 100-plus Century Club (continued on page 62)

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