New Concepts in Shoe Retail: The 1990sBy the end of the 1980s, Fisher and Camuto's company was involved in both the wholesale and retail markets of the women's shoes business. On December 31, 1991, these concerns--Fisher Camuto Corporation, Fisher Camuto Retail Corporation, and Espressioni, Inc.--merged to form a new company, which was soon renamed Nine West Group Inc. Preparing to go public, Fisher and Camuto merged Jervin Inc. into the Nine West Group, of which it became a division in 1992. Once this transaction was completed, Nine West became a public corporation in early February 1993, selling shares of common stock on the New York Stock Exchange.By this time, Nine West was operating 236 retail and outlet stores as well as designing and marketing branded and private-label shoes to more than 2,000 department, specialty, and independent store customers. Of its five nationally recognized brands, its Nine West brand was the most successful, having been redefined and repositioned in 1989 to compete in the $50 to $65 price range. The company's more moderately priced Calico brand represented its most traditionally styled shoe, typically selling for between $40 and $50. Nine West's Westies brand, sold only by independent retailers, competed in the under $40 market segment, while the Enzo Angiolini brand, the company's designer label, comprised leather shoes priced between $65 and $80. The company's fifth brand, 9 & Co., was created to attract a younger clientele and featured a line of junior footwear priced below $50, which was sold through the company's new retail store concept, also named 9 & Co.In the wholesale side of its business, Nine West distributed private-label shoes to a host of large, nationally recognized customers, including J.C. Penney Company, Sears, Roebuck & Co., Thom McAn Shoe Company, and Kinney Shoes. Design, manufacturing, and sales operations of the private-label footwear were overseen by Nine West's Jervin division. The company's branded shoes were distributed to several of the largest department stores in the country, including The May Department Stores Company, R.H. Macy & Co., Federated Department Stores, Nordstrom, and Dillard Department Stores.Nine West's success was largely dependent on its use of Brazilian manufacturing facilities. While these factories had initially manufactured 200 pairs of shoes per day for Fisher and Camuto, the production level had increased exponentially, reaching 130,000 pairs of shoes per day in 1993. During this time, the industry in Brazil employed a work force of over 39,000 and maintained cost-efficient factories, which operated their own tanneries. Moreover, through manufacturing arrangements with 25 independent Brazilian shoe manufacturers, which produced Nine West shoes in 40 factories, Nine West was able to deliver design specifications and receive completed products in an eight-week period, giving the company a supplier network that ranked among the best in the U.S. shoe industry.Buoyed by this established supply network, Nine West capitalized on a fashion trend away from sneakers toward heavier, sturdier shoes, a trend widely embraced by younger consumers in late 1993 and early 1994. The shift in consumers' tastes caught several of the country's large athletic shoe manufacturers--Reebok International Ltd., Nike, Inc., and L.A. Gear, Inc.--by surprise, and their sales figures declined. However, Nine West and some other companies, such as Timberland Co., an outdoor apparel and shoe company, experienced a surge in profits. Nine West's stock price, which initially sold for $17.50 per share, shot up to more than $34 by the fourth quarter of the company's 1993 fiscal year.As Nine West planned for the future, it focused on becoming a greater retail force in the U.S. shoe industry, a market segment that represented a $14 billion business in 1993. Toward this end, in 1994, the company planned to open 20 Enzo Angiolini stores, prompted by heightened consumer interest in elegant footwear. By 1997, Nine West's management hoped to derive half of its sales from the retail segment of its business, which during the mid-1990s recorded one of the highest sales-per-square-foot averages in the U.S. shoe industry at $555 per-square-foot a year. With more than 325 retail stores and its established wholesale business supplying more than 5,500 storefronts with women's shoes, Nine West expected to garner a greater share of the U.S. retail and wholesale market.
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