Shanghai Factories with Rob and Michael

Here is my Journey in the Footwear Industry and the lessons I learned along the way #248

Blog #247 I talked about the FACE golf tournament for charity. In this blog I want to talk about the Shanghai Factories with Rob and Michael.

We met Rob and Michael the next morning in Shanghai, it was an early flight so it was going to be a long day. Our goal was to find some men’s shoes product and expand our wide with boot program. We were doing well with the Fitzwell brand and thought the gel pods would be great for some men’s dress and casual shoes. We also had plans to expand into the work category eventually.

We usually would use existing lasts that the factory could show us without infringing upon someone else’s product in the US. We would usually tweak the upper to make a difference. Men’s shoes did great in wide widths at Zappos so this was our goal. Rob and Michael lined up some great factories for us and we were excited for the product to hit our warehouse. Men’s for Fitzwell was going to be great now with these added styles.

Linda came with me on this trip as Charles and I were going to take some R&R after the trip and explore Beijing. Linda was also trying to source some Light bulbs for her Lamp line she just developed. They were battery…