Footwear Insight

footwearinsight.com July/August 2025 ~ Footwear Insight • 15 It has about a 22,000 pair capacity, and we have it probably 60 percent full right now. But there are only about 65 SKUs represented. Certain strategic brands, we're telling them, 'Look, we're going to give you a 30 percent increase in this SKU, and we're going to warehouse it in our warehouse.' It takes the monkey o their back so they can do their forecasting. No matter how big or small you are as a retailer, even if you only have two or three or four doors, you can still do some forecasting and invest your dollars wisely into those core shoes that you can fulll every week. All 25 Beck stores are being lled twice a week with those 65 SKUs. And those are the never out 80/20 shoes. ose shoes are also being displayed. ey're being merchandised in our stores in pairs. Every week our executive buying team is looking at trends. Last week, we added three SKUs. e week before that, we added ve SKUs. As we forecast every one of the 52 weeks, we're either adding or subtracting SKUs based on sales. …Typically, vendors become over SKU'd. ey have too many shoes in their catalog. And too many of those shoes cannibalize one another. So, it's really about the 'less is more' mentality you're forecasting. If they have less SKUs, they're going to have less distressed inventory, they're going to have healthier inventories. And healthier inventories are better inventory turns, which equate to cash ow and protability for wholesale and retail. We might buy 300 pairs of a red shoe from three dierent vendors, but we know that we're not going to ll into that. We're going to sell it out, but we're also buying less end sizes. We're buying more of the women's core sizes. So, less size six, lots less size six and a half. We're going to go seven, seven and a half, eight, eight and a half, nine. We're going to buy less nine and a half, less 10… We're buying a lot less inventory, and we're doubling down with the size seven, seven, half eight, eight, half of nine… In terms of overall inventory, we have the same amount of dollars, but we have fewer sizes available. I'm catering more to the core sizes. It's so volatile out there that I can't take that risk right now." What's Keeping this Retailer Up at Night… "What keeps me up at night is making sure we're providing opportunities for the people that work at Beck's Shoes... I have a mantra, and the mantra is simple: It's control the controllables. I focus 80% of my eort on the things I have control over and only put 20% of my eort towards the things I don't have control over, and that is what keeps me up and keeps me motivated every day." n

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