Payless Shoes Case Study

Payless ShoeSource’ is one of the largest family footwear retailers in the Western Hemisphere. In Canada itself, Payless has approximately 296 stores, more than seventy stores in Ontario and five in Hamilton. Payless Shoesource is very widespread with its distribution through retail; therefore they do not have a specific area of concentration. Although, Payless Shoesource only opens their stores where there is a large number of population and its’ target market in its surroundings. One is most likely to see ‘Payless Shoesource’ in a location where there is a traffic flow, public transportation, accessibility, and a fit with other stores alongside. The four major locations you will spot a ‘Payless Shoesource’ location are:

• Regional shopping centres which are located in the suburban area with anchor stores, as well as up to 150 well known stores;

• Community shopping centre, which consists of only one primary store, plus 20 to 40 smaller ones;

• Strip locations which consist of a cluster of stores and are located within a 5 to 10 minute drive;

• Power centres are a variation of the strip centre, except power centres have huge strips with multiple anchor stores

Corporate Structure

Payless ShoeSource was founded in Topeka, Kansas in 1956 by two brothers, Shaol and Louis Pozez; which was first owned by Collective Brands Inc. Payless ShoeSource has a global network of stores that all operate under ‘Collective Brands Inc.’ as franchisees. Today, Payless helps millions of consumers through its strong network of global stores in all of the United States, Puerto Rico, Central America, the U.S Virgin Islands, Saipan, and Guam. The corporation has also begun to put its efforts towards the Eastern Hemisphere through franchising. There ...

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... carries consists of diverse categories of shoes: i.e. dress, work and safety, casual, skate, loafers, character, uniform, etc. This gives the consumer the advantage of finding all types of shoes he or she may need or want to buy in one store within an affordable price range. Apart from the large variety of brands Payless carries, the store also carries a variation in the height of the shoe heels. The heel heights vary from 1 inch to 4 ½ inches; this opens up options to the consumers depending on what height they prefer their heel to be. Furthermore, each shoe has a different width size and everyone has their own preference, therefore Payless offers three type of widths in regards to their footwear: regular, wide, and width. In addition, the store offers a huge variety in colour when it comes to their footwear and accessories; they have colours from ivory to multi.