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GREATS Is Building The Next Great Footwear Company

This article is more than 10 years old.

Is it possible to build a high-quality, low-cost footwear brand? GREATS is finding out. With the success of what some people call the “Warby Parker” model: cutting out the middle man and bringing a great balance of low-cost and quality product directly to consumers online. GREATS is applying that exact model to the footwear industry.

Built by two entrepreneurs formerly in the footwear industry, Jon Buscemi of DC Shoes and Gourmet Footwear, and Ryan Babenzien of K-Swiss and Puma, GREATS launched only a few months ago and are already sold out of all of their styles. On their website right now, there are two styles (Wilson and Royale), with three variations each. And while they are currently sold out, you can still pre-order your style and size.

In the shoe industry, consumers pay prices that include the markup charged by the wholesale/retail business. Remove them and you substantially lower the price consumers would pay.  On average, a retailer marks a purchased shoe up 2.5x. For example, a consumer will pay on average $380 for leather shoes, but GREATS  can do a deerskin leather court shoe with calf skin lining for about $100. You can only do this if you are a startup brand that sells directly to consumers.

I had the opportunity to connect with Ryan Babenzien, co-founder of GREATS, to ask him about the shoewear industry, their beautifully designed website, and how they plan to get past the fact that people want to try on shoes before buying them.

Alexander Taub (AT): Why build a shoe company? What is missing out there that you needed to build GREATS to fill the need?

Ryan Babenzien (RB): Well first off and most importantly, Jon and I know the footwear business and specifically, the men's footwear business. My time at K-Swiss and Puma and Jon's time at DC Shoes and then Gourmet Footwear gives us a category expertise in designing and making sneakers and positioning and marketing a footwear brand. Most of the founders of other ecom brands had no experience in the business they were entering, which we found surprising. We think that our experience is a testament to our early success. In terms of opportunity, before GREATS there was no ecom men's footwear brand. One of the early successes for fashion e-commerce was Zappos; people are comfortable buying shoes online. But no one had created an online men's footwear brand before GREATS. Online purchasing in all fashion categories continues to grow, including footwear, so we were excited to bring our expertise into a growing market where none existed.

AT: Where do you go from here? More same level shoes? Socks? Fancy shoes? Or stick to what you know?

RB: We will continue to offer new styles, new price categories, and new versions of the existing styles, the Wilson and the Royale. In that sense we're no different than the legacy sneaker/footwear brands. Category expansion will absolutely happen and socks and footwear accessories are both on the board as are more traditional brogues, boat shoes, boots, etc. GREATS  is a brand that will offer different types of footwear and prices just like Nike or Adidas.

AT: How did you come up with the design for your website (it is very pretty)?

RB: We had a very clear vision of what we wanted GREATS to look like. Clean, inspired by sport and a traditional retro vibe as opposed to a tech and modern vibe. Our web designers over at Wondersauce immediately understood what we were looking for once we showed them the mood board. They did such a good job we actually took second place in the Shopify Design awards and had only been operational for a week when we registered. The web design community has been very complimentary of the site.

AT: How did you arrive at your price point?

RB: The price is a function of cost, nothing more. We're not a "cheap" brand, we're a value brand. That means whatever the price our shoe is, you'll get a higher quality and value than another brand that would be selling shoes at retail. We don't wholesale our shoes and therefore we're able to make higher quality product and sell them directly at lower costs than our competitors. We'll do a Made In Italy series that will be around $180, but if you were buying that shoe at Barney's it would be $500 or more. The consumers win here.

AT: What is your focus for the rest of the year?

RB: We're in the middle of raising capital, building shoes for 2014, opening an experimental retail space in Williamsburg in late October, interviewing CTO's and performance marketing managers, you know, not much. Haha.

AT: How can the consumer know that GREATS actually offers more value?

RB: At first glance someone might say, oh the Wilson is a canvas shoe for $59, so what? But if you look a little deeper and ideally buy a pair you'll see and feel that its a better canvas sneaker than our competitors that are higher priced. We source the best materials we can and up spec the parts. For example, we use a molded pu insole in the Wilson where other similarly priced sneakers use a flat thin piece of cotton covered foam. Comfort is important so we added that feature. We offer two sets of laces, one stretch cord and another more traditional cotton lace. On the Royale, we lined the entire shoe in American Vachetta calf which I can tell you is very soft and feels like dipping your feet in warm butter. When we told the factory we wanted to do this they thought we were insane! They said "the calf lining is more than the leather on the upper?" We said we know, but that's what we want. Then we went and imported a Margom sole from Italy which is the same sole that Lanvin, Balenciaga, Rag & Bone, Common Projects, Del Torro, and many other luxury sneaker brands use. And we're selling it for $99...Once the consumer understands this, they will really know how much value GREATS is really offering. Frankly we could charge more for our sneakers but we really want the consumer to get a good a value as we can offer and still be a healthy business.

AT: Some consumers still prefer to try on shoes and touch them before buying. How will GREATS address this?

RB: We don't dislike retail, we dislike wholesaling. There's a huge difference. Beginning in late October we have a few "presentation partner" stores where consumers can come face to face with the product rather than have to guess online. They can't buy GREATS in the store but they will get to experience the product, and can go back to the website to order what they’ve tried on. Union in LA is one of those stores and Union is often ranked as one of the most influential men's stores in the world. They carry the cult Japanese brand Visvim and happen to be the 1 of 3 or 4 retailers in the US that carry's Visvim. They also carry Thom Browne, Duvetica, Stone Island, and Mark McNairy, to name a few. Then in Scottsdale, AZ we'll be in High Point which is the best sneaker store in the SouthWest. We're in good company for sure. In Williamsburg we'll have our own space that is more of an experiment, the difference being you'll be able to buy shoes in that space since it's ours. It's a small, minimally designed but well curated 10 x 10 glass box that will only be open on Sat & Sundays. I know, who does that in retail!  We have a theory about scarcity and I'll let you know if we're right in a few months.