Mark Adrian Shoes Newsletter – Curation & Selection

July 17, 2024 6:52 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

I just tried going to Zappos.com and typing in “sneaker,” and it showed me 108 options…on page 1. And there were 103 pages of that. That’s 11,124 styles and colors that qualify as a “sneaker.” I don’t care how picky you are, nobody needs eleven thousand options for one type of shoe. [Insert scientific study on the psychology of too many choices! Nah. I think you know.]

That’s where we come in. We research styles, colors, materials, workmanship, prices, comfort and support features to put together our collection at Mark Adrian Shoes. When we put a shoe on your foot, it has been thoroughly vetted and we feel it would be a fantastic “fit” for our customers.

I attend five to seven shoe shows a year in locations like Manchester, NH and Atlanta, GA. (One of these years, I should probably plan a buying trip to Italy with my wife!) Together with the staff, we pick through a huge offering of shoes, sneakers, boots, sandals, and slippers for women, men and kids.

Our thorough selection process is a mix of art and science. We use sales reports, consumer trends, and anecdotal experience from previous seasons. We rely on our professional expertise and knowledge of footwear, feet, fit, support and comfort, as well as our own aesthetic preferences and our interpretation of yours. Oh, and we have to write our orders 7-10 months before the shoes will ship to us!

As you can see, a lot goes into stocking our store…and this was just about picking styles and colors! Maintaining and managing that inventory is another whole topic for another email.

Thanks for reading! Come on in and see what we picked for this season.

Adam

P.S. I’d love to hear what you are interested in learning about. Reply back with ideas, questions or curiosities and I’ll try to include them in a future email!

My second biggest job for the store, second only to customer service, is curation – skillfully and lovingly selecting the shoes for our store. As of today, we have approximately 10,000 pairs of shoes under our roof. That represents hundreds of styles from dozens of brands. We have to (get to) pick every single one of those…and it’s not an easy task.

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