Shoe Repair Store Lost Income

I don’t like to throw anything away-not disposable lighters, razors, or shoes.  Cheap shoes cannot be repaired and must be tossed into land fills, so I buy durable ones, knowing that repeated repairs are part of the investment. Cheap imports have changed the repair business and now repair shops are found primarily downtown and in pricey neighborhoods.  Since I wear my favorite shoes all the time, getting them repaired is quite an undertaking: finding a shop, arranging my schedule, dropping them off, going without them for a week, and then picking them up.

I drove past a shoe repair shop that had recently opened in gentrified Bucktown. The space was unusually large, and the rent must have been steep. I dropped off the shoes off and paid in advance, rather than pay the customary 50% deposit. When I went back to pick them up, the owner was late for work that day–stuck in traffic.  I left a note that I’d tried to pick them up and found the store closed. To his credit, he called me at my office and brought them to me. That helped, because I was going out of town and needed them for the trip. But it meant that his shop was unattended while he delivered them.

Needing another repair a few months later, I obviously went back to the shop where the owner cared enough to deliver my shoes. I was dismayed to see that his hours changed: open at 9 a. m. and close at 5 p. m. I gave up. Service businesses, dry cleaners, shoe repair place, etc., must cater to their customers’ schedules.

Making a good living in that business is no slam-dunk. This is what I saw: a good guy who may have grown up in the shoe repair/shine business and struck out on his own.  The neighborhood had gentrified enough to support a shoe repair shop, but covering retail hours as a single entrepreneur is very confining. He may live far away. His transportation wasn’t reliable. If I tried to spend my $20 repair there and gave up, how many others gave up, too?

What’s the solution?  As I always think, it is within the community.  There must be other trustworthy, experienced shoe repair people who could and would help.  It means sharing the pie rather than not having  pie at all.

It is particularly poignant to realize that this guy put his savings and his dreams on the line to open his own business.  Faced with the reality of high rent and the demanding hours of a service business, he lost income because he couldn’t staff the store adequately. A cooperative solution is one alternative. A shoe repair shop may not have the cash flow to sustain the business, but combining with other retail businesses or services, it may have a chance. What we have now is undoubtedly nothing. A failed business and a neighborhood where shoes can’t be repaired.

Reach Out for Opportunity talks about the wealth of talent that lives within close proximity to each other. New Community Vision’s goal is to facilitate gatherings community-by-community, every month so that members can discover who needs what you have to give and who has what you need to get. I welcome your comments.