When was payless shoes founded

Louis operation of "'Hill Brothers Self Service'" stores were known for their bare bones minimalism and the slogan "two for five — man alive! Baker, Inc. In April the company, struggling with the migration of retail shopping to e-commerce, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Prior to the bankruptcy, heavily loaded with debt due to a private equity buy out, the company's credit rating was downgraded by Moody's.

The company's bankruptcy announcement was part of a trend of retail closures in — known as the retail apocalypse. Payless emerged from bankruptcy court protection in August The company was the first among a group of retailers going through bankruptcy since to successfully complete the process of restructuring.

On February 14, , Payless ShoeSource filed for bankruptcy again and will close all 2, stores. Ghosts of Retailers' past Wiki Explore. H H Hunter's Bay.

R R Rugged Outback. About Payless ShoeSource. Who We Are Payless ShoeSource is a specialty family footwear retailer in the Western Hemisphere, offering a trend-right and comprehensive range of everyday and special occasion shoes and accessory items at affordable prices for every member of the family.

Subscribe to our mailing list Email Address. Be the first to know. Get a special voucher when you signup for our newsletter! Plus an exclusive sneak peak on upcoming deals and new arrivals. Count me in! The company then expanded into Oklahoma, Texas, and Nebraska, opening 12 new outlets by the end of the decade.

From the start, Payless stores were designed to maintain low prices by keeping overhead to a minimum. The first outlets were located in former supermarkets with the original fixtures replaced by simple, unpainted, wooden shelving, constructed in large part by store managers. The self-service format of the stores allowed Payless to limit staff, which usually consisted only of a manager and one or two clerks.

Payless was not alone in offering budget footwear in a self-service format to American consumers. The self-service shoe industry emerged soon after World War II when cheap imported shoes began to be available on a widespread basis.

Growth was fueled by changes in fashion that emphasized a looser fitting, more casual shoe as well as more variety in footwear. The s baby boom also contributed to the rise in large discount shoe stores that catered primarily to middle-income families with children. Like most of these low-end shoe stores, Payless's major market was in women's and children's shoes, which constituted about 60 percent and 30 percent of sales, respectively. In the early s, Pay-Less National, which had been operating retail stores under various names, including Pay-Less Self Service, National Self Service, Gambles Discount Shoes, and Shopper's City, changed its corporate name to "Volume Distributors" in order to reflect the company's diverse operations more closely.

In Volume Distributors went public to raise capital for further growth. The influx of cash from the initial public offering allowed the company to open an average of 12 new stores annually in the early s.

In order to cope with the increased inventory, in Volume Distributors adopted a new computerized inventory system that used stock-keeping units SKUs to keep track of the large number of shoe styles and sizes stocked in the company's 50 stores. The new system was temporarily sidetracked when a tornado completely destroyed the company headquarters and warehouse in Topeka on the very evening that the first computer-generated inventory report was to be produced.

Volume Distributors quickly picked up the pieces from this natural disaster and built new corporate offices at another location in Topeka. In "Volume Distributors" was renamed "Volume Shoe Corporation" in order to identify it more closely with the footwear industry.

In addition to new store openings in the late s and early s, Volume Shoe implemented a program of acquisitions to further accelerate growth. From through Volume Shoe purchased eight smaller retail shoe companies, adding a total of stores to the growing chain. The prosperity of the company during the inflation-plagued early s actually led to a conflict with the Nixon administration in when Volume Shoe raised its dividend in spite of a government imposed wage-price freeze.

Company President Louis Pozez was summoned to Washington to justify the dividend hike in a meeting with the President's "Cost of Living Council," but ultimately no further action was taken against the firm. The rate of new store openings continued to accelerate through the mids. The Payless ShoeSource name was adopted in for the bulk of Volume Shoe retail outlets and the company logo was changed to the now familiar yellow, orange, and brown.

The success of Volume Shoe and its Payless ShoeSource outlets was due in part to the company's skill at choosing locations for its stores. Although early stores were primarily freestanding, in the late s Payless outlets also opened in major malls across the country. By , 40 percent of all Payless stores were mall-based. The distribution of Payless units in a variety of real estate locales, including suburban strip developments, central business districts, shopping centers, and shopping malls, promoted the visibility and consumer recognition of the bold yellow logo as well as increasing the range of customers who would feel comfortable shopping at Payless stores.

From the start, Payless's relationship with its suppliers was key to the company's success. In the early years, the company bought their shoes "off the shelf" from American as well as foreign manufacturers, protecting themselves from shortages and sudden price increases by using a large number of suppliers.

In the early s no single manufacturer supplied more than 6 percent of Payless's merchandise. By the mids Payless was having shoes made to their own specifications to ensure that the shoe styles available in their stores matched the expectations of increasingly demanding consumers. These company-specific shoe styles would eventually evolve into private-label brands that would become the staple of Payless ShoeSource outlets from the mids. The development of in-house brands allowed Payless to maintain tight control over style and quality, the two issues that had driven customers away from many discount chains in the s.

The retail giant owned 11 department and discount store chains, but Volume Shoe was May's first entry into the discount shoe business. Volume Shoe was considered an excellent acquisition by analysts. May's capital allowed the Payless chain to expand at an accelerated pace and by there were 1, Payless outlets in 34 states. More than half of these stores were located in the Sunbelt states, where an influx of population was creating record retail growth.