Footwear Insight

20 • Footwear Insight ~ March/April 2023 footwearinsight.com THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE TRADEHOME Retail Profile Unique Strategy Fuels Success for Retailer Tradehome Shoes By Bob McGee F or the last nine years of its 102- year existence, Tradehome Shoes has taken its unique story for both customers and employees to another level. During that span, the Cottage Grove, MN- based company has never lost sight of its "sit and fit" roots, Midwestern values or attention to localized needs as it morphed from being privately held to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) firm. e retailer was founded in 1921 on the principle of "trading at home" in the local com- munity instead of through catalogs from the likes of Sears and Roebuck and J.C. Penney. Today, 271 Tradehome employees ranging from warehouse staffers to office personnel and store managers, about one-third of the overall payroll, own a stake in the fortunes of the com- pany, which has grown to 130 stores across 25 states and nearly doubled overall revenues over the last three years. ESOPs are one of the most common forms of employee ownership, helping to motivate and retain staff, and in turn helping the company to succeed. But they are a rarity in the footwear and retail sectors. A recent ranking of the U.S.'s largest majority employee-owned companies by the website nceo.org in Oct. 2022 lists only two with connec- tions to footwear or retail, 17th-ranked Fargo, ND-based Scheels All Sports, which employs more than 6,600, and 6th-ranked W.L. Gore that employs some 12,000. "I think if you were to poll our entire group, you would find that all of us are very happy working for a privately-owned, employee-owned company. We wouldn't change it," says Justin Kehrwald, president and CEO of Tradehome Shoes since 2018 aer serving nearly 19 years as Chief Operating Officer and more than 23 years overall. e people who work at Tradehome's stores are the retailer's "greatest strength," according to Kehrwald. "Our employees, in our stores and at our home office, truly care about delivering great service and great products to our communities." Utilizing its ESOP structure, Tradehome empowers its local store manager-owners to build their own customized merchandise assortments with assistance from their Tradehome peers in the region via weekly "virtual Facetime" and a home office buying staff. Tradehome's stores typically have sales floors of approximately 1,200 sq. . and carry 60 to 70 brands per season, with footwear accounting for 40 of them and retail prices ranging from $30 to $300 a pair. "It's not a one size fits all for our stores," notes Kehrwald, adding the chain utilizes regular Zoom calls among store managers to discuss "hot" brand and style trends in particular markets and an expedient product transfer

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