News: Another shoe retailer trying Parkgate for size
A second leading shoe retailer is looking to open at Parkgate Shopping, making it a pair in recent months.
Rothbiz revealed earlier this month that Deichmann, Europe’s largest shoe retailer, had outlined plans to take on the former Bensons for Beds unit at Parkgate Shopping.
Now rival retailer, Shoe Zone, has also begun recruiting for a new store opening based in Rotherham as it looks to expand in out-of-town retail locations.
Shoe Zone offers low price and high quality footwear for the whole family. During an average year it sells 14.5 million pairs of shoes per annum at an average retail price of £13. Operating from 340 stores across the UK, retail park locations include its core shoezone product range as well as additional brands such as Skechers, Hush Puppies and Kickers.
Positions available include store manager, assistant manager, supervisor and sales assistant and the postcode for the store is listed as Parkgate Shopping.
With recent expansions for Poundland, who have taken the large former Marks & Spencer unit, and plans in the pipeline for Sports Direct and USC to join a new gym in the former Millets outlet, this would leave three empty units on the park.
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The move comes after Shoe Zone closed its Rotherham town centre store on Effingham Street in 2022.
In its recent financial results, Shoe Zone bosses said that it would transform its property portfolio with relocations/new stores being partially funded by landlords through rent free periods of typically 12 months.
For the year ended October 2022, it had 45 Big Box, 44 Hybrid and 271 Original stores, adding: "This year we expect to relocate or open a further 35 stores and continue to close a number of older stores, and we will refit a minimum of 15 stores to our new formats.
"We have seen over the last two years a reduction in store numbers as we have exited unprofitable locations. We will continue to rollout our successful Big Box and Hybrid formats by targeting key towns for conversion or relocation. Our ultimate goal is a doubling of Big Box locations to approximately 100 and an increase in Hybrid stores from 44 to approximately 150. Overall, we anticipate trading from a similar sales square footage, albeit from a reduced number of locations."
Shoe Zone website
Parkgate Shopping website
Images: Staunton Whiteman
Rothbiz revealed earlier this month that Deichmann, Europe’s largest shoe retailer, had outlined plans to take on the former Bensons for Beds unit at Parkgate Shopping.
Now rival retailer, Shoe Zone, has also begun recruiting for a new store opening based in Rotherham as it looks to expand in out-of-town retail locations.
Shoe Zone offers low price and high quality footwear for the whole family. During an average year it sells 14.5 million pairs of shoes per annum at an average retail price of £13. Operating from 340 stores across the UK, retail park locations include its core shoezone product range as well as additional brands such as Skechers, Hush Puppies and Kickers.
Positions available include store manager, assistant manager, supervisor and sales assistant and the postcode for the store is listed as Parkgate Shopping.
With recent expansions for Poundland, who have taken the large former Marks & Spencer unit, and plans in the pipeline for Sports Direct and USC to join a new gym in the former Millets outlet, this would leave three empty units on the park.
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The move comes after Shoe Zone closed its Rotherham town centre store on Effingham Street in 2022.
In its recent financial results, Shoe Zone bosses said that it would transform its property portfolio with relocations/new stores being partially funded by landlords through rent free periods of typically 12 months.
For the year ended October 2022, it had 45 Big Box, 44 Hybrid and 271 Original stores, adding: "This year we expect to relocate or open a further 35 stores and continue to close a number of older stores, and we will refit a minimum of 15 stores to our new formats.
"We have seen over the last two years a reduction in store numbers as we have exited unprofitable locations. We will continue to rollout our successful Big Box and Hybrid formats by targeting key towns for conversion or relocation. Our ultimate goal is a doubling of Big Box locations to approximately 100 and an increase in Hybrid stores from 44 to approximately 150. Overall, we anticipate trading from a similar sales square footage, albeit from a reduced number of locations."
Shoe Zone website
Parkgate Shopping website
Images: Staunton Whiteman
26 comments:
Can someone explain what is happening in Rotherham foot department? Several years ago, when we had shops in the town centre, they were all shoe shops. Gradually they all closed, even the ones that moved to Parkgate. Was it so bad after Covid and during the recession that we all stopped wearing shoes? Did we all start wrapping our feet in newspaper before venturing out into the flesh pots of Wickersley? Is the falling birth rate in Rotherham the result of the town's young ladies no longer wearing FM shoes? Now suddenly shoe shops are falling over themselves to open super stores in our town. What is happening?
Shoe Zone always has an awful rubber smell that other shoe shops don't seem to have. You can smell it before you're within sight of the shop.
I reckon the shoe shops all got cold feet & now want to stick their toes in the water!
Yes it's a bit like the old Bisto ads: "Ah, soles"
In much the same way that contraceptive factories have that awful shoe smell.
Shoe Zone deserting Rotherham in 2022 was the final nail in the coffin for me as far as the town centre is concerned. I used to love nothing more than walking into town in my corrugated cardboard shoes, eating a happy hour bacon sandwich from Greggs in All Saints Square and then spending a happy afternoon browsing in Shoe Zone and dreaming of what I would buy once I could afford to leave my squat in Wickersley. Now I would never even think of walking into town if it was not for the shoe bank in the market or the voluntary lip cement top up centre in the old Burtons building. I feel so sad looking at the town centre and remembering what it was once like when people actually wore matching pink shell suits and ShoeZone trainers. Nowadays people look so scruffy and are always asking for a pound so that they can get the bus home. I just say sorry and suggest they get some corrugated cardboard.
True, a surprising number of people lose their bus fares in town and are then obliged to ask for a "loan" from complete strangers. One young woman loses hers 4 or 5 times a day and keeps popping into the County to check whether anyone has handed it in.
I yearn for the days when a better class of person frequented the town centre and would come up to you and ask for a fiver for the taxi fare home
Corrugated cardboard shoes would have been luxury for me and my seven brothers and sisters growing up in Josephine Road. Dad was a delivery van driver for Veres but was often on the sick after dropping a tray of white baps on his foot in Clifton. Mum could only afford one pair of shoes between us each year, usually bought on tick from Wigfalls or Pecks. The eldest got to choose what shoes they wanted, usually a pair of pumps or wellingtons and these had to last all year. They were handle down to the younger children and I remember vividly representing Ferham School in my wellies.
Happy days!
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I was at Ferham with you or one of your brothers. One year a lad had to wear his sister's hand-me-downs once they were too small for her. The only problem was that they were ballet slippers. We used to call him Margot Fontaine. Last we heard of him he was in panto in Cairo.
I think I saw "Margot" in cabaret once in Suez. He was wearing stilettos and holding the donkey.
I think some of the messages on here are made up, especially the ones about Ferham. I grew up in a caravan parked at the bottom of Cavendish Road and cannot remember the area being really poor. My mum was a single parent who took in lodgers and managed quite well. We had loads of proper shoes usually bought by one of my uncles
I beg to differ. A lot of what has been said about Ferham on this message board resonates with me and my sister very strongly. We lived in abject poverty throughout our time at the school and often the free school milk was our only substantial meal of the day. It was not until we had been teaching at Ferham for 5 years that we could afford school dinners
Me and my friend used to pass that caravan on our way to school. It always seemed to be wobbling.
Well I loved it in Ferham! Have very fond memories of getting rid of nits at Ferham Clinic and then going to the pictures at the Premier to catch a few more.
School Nit Nurse (Nitty Nora) used to live next door to us on Hartington Road. All the kids were frightened of her
Cardboard shoes? I used to black my feet with shoe polish and then lace my toes up.
I think you sat next to me at Alma Road school. Didn't you have a purple scalp?
Yes I did
My old fella used to pinch shoes for us from the display racks outside Clark's. Of course they only ever put one of a pair on display so we always had to hop to school. If hopscotch had been an Olympic sport our family would have won gold everyvtime
Wnen I was very small my maternal grandfather was an out of work miner. He had a hobbing foot and would repair friends and neighbours shoes for a few coppers using any materials he found on his travels. I've seen many an old chap on Badsley Moor Lane walking about on corrugated iron soles.
If I'm not mistaken he also used old railway sleepers, which were a bit heavy going but lasted for ages
In fact my grandfather is credited with inventing platform shoes as the sleepers he used were lifted from the side of Masborough Station when it was being demolished He later pleaded not guilty to the charge of derailing the Penzance Express
I think you are making some of this stuff up about your childhood.
That is very hurtful. To the best of my knowledge neither myself nor Boris have misspoken about our days at junior and infant schools at Wellgate, Ferham, Alma Road or Badsley Moor Lane. We have not deliberately misled Rothbiz readers....
It's a witch hunt. They will be suspending him for 90 days next. That would be quite ironic really, because I think I know the guy and he was once expelled for 90 days from Ferham School. Something or other about the girls' bike sheds.
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