Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1353193
Chiappetta says he is "bullish about a return to normal- cy by Fall/Winter 2021." "It's been an awesome experiment… In this next year, we have an opportunity to help the independent shoe retailers out. What I've notice with the group and independently with my business, there are a lot of things that retailers have to do, especially independents, that take up a lot of time — like entering SKU data and photography. There have been companies that have tried to create services and take that over, but nothing is ever uniform or standardized. With this group, we have the opportunity to do something and take away hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work from 500 different independents doing the same thing. With Shoe Dogs United, [we could] potentially be forming a buying group. There are a lot of little services we can implement, so we are starting the conversations about these things now." Despite its challenges, the past year led to innovative retail ideas. "In April 2020, we did a promotion offering half-off orthotics if you brought in your plastic molds. Normally, April is one of our biggest months. With the boost from the orthotic promotion, we were down only 40 percent for the month. We actually had our best June and July (2020) ever, which is totally insane. People were getting out and eating outside. Life felt relatively normal. That was a huge part of it. In July in particular, we usually do a clearance sale with racks in the store. But this time, with the pandemic, we thought it would pack too many people close together. So, we ended up doing a tent sale for the first time, two weeks later than the annual clearance event so there was a lot of risk…Another part of it was the Chicago Tribune had this insanely, amazing, good deal where we got print advertisements for about 5 percent of the actual cost. So, we ran 14 full production ads every Sunday starting in May. It was a huge factor that helped spur demand. We kept our foot on the gas. We were looking for opportunities." We actually had our best June and July (2020) ever, which is totally insane. People were getting out and eating outside. Life felt relatively normal. 48 • sportstyle • March 2021 sportstylemag.com RETAIL