Everyday this week I will be featuring independent designers that contribute to the male fashion movement. Today, get identified with Chris Burns' company: ARCH SHOES.
Chris Burns, creator of Arch ShoesThere are a lot of possible options in naming abrand of shoes, why “Arch”? What was that process like finalizing a name?
First, Harrison, I truly appreciate you taking an interest in me and ARCH. It’svery hard to get anyone to write about what I am doing since there isn’t anendorser, or a big name behind the brand. I initially wanted the company to beARC. ARC was going to stand for Athletes Require Competition. As a pretty big sneaker lover, I rememberedthat there was a brand that actually had A.R.C. on the tongue of their shoe.Once I saw that I simply added the H and made it silent. I’m a formercollegiate athlete and a coach. I always told my players that what they neededthe most wasn’t talent; it was heart, so the H fell right into place. The funnything is I haven’t even trademarked the name. I guess I shouldn’t be sayingthis. The first trademark failed and I have yet to continue the process again.I figured that if the brand caught on, honestly it wouldn't matter and if it iscool enough to steal, I can do it again the right way and somebody else canhave it. I think I take things a bit toocasually.
I think it’s amazing that you, a young AfricanAmerican business man has his own brand of tennis shoes. If that’s notinspiring, I’m not sure what is. Take me through the steps of how you initiallyhad the idea of starting this business venture and how you got it off the groundto produce your first shoe?
Once again thanks … for calling me young, lol. Thanks for the compliment. Ihonestly don’t think about this being inspiring. I was in education for 17years and I always think about that as inspiring. The initial steps startedwith a brand named Sho-Shot in 2005. I basically placed that company on my backand was able to help get the Puerto Rican legends (Big Shout to Kool Bob Love)in the Sho-Shot uniforms and I also was able to get 9 colleges into the gear. Idid this by branding the company through basketball camps and my Center CourtBasketball website. I funded the launch of the shoe for Sho-Shot through loansand helped to build the brand and the actual owner decided to sell it. I didn’tget any assistance in making a new shoe or recovering any of my funds investedand I lost everything. That was in 2008. In 2009 I had the idea for ARCH andafter almost losing everything, I couldn’t get any credit or any financialassistance so that was out of the question. I slowly began to pay for outsolesand samples with a manufacturer in China. Everything was coming out of mypocket so it was a long and slow process, but it turned out for the bestbecause it enabled me to make small quantities of shoes. It’s more detailed, butfor the sake of brevity I’ll stop there.
What was your marketing plan when firstlaunching your company, and would you say it was thoroughly executed? Sincebeing around for a few years, how do you market now?
I guess that is really my biggest problem. I was working from a local and smallperspective. I was going to originally make basketball shoes and continue usingmy camps and website to promote. When everything went downhill, I stoppedrunning the website. This means that the initial plan to sell ARCH as a pureathletic shoe company was dead. I literally turned away from the athletic partand I didn’t have a marketing plan at all. I just knew I had a spot at a localmarket in Memphis and that since I was selling Nike, Adidas, Puma and other brandsat the market, I could sit my shoes right next to those. It worked; I sold myfirst release which was called the Tori. It was a hightop casual shoe. I did not have a marketing plan still. I waskind of just aiming and firing and hoping different things would work. Theproblem was in 2009 into 2010 my focus was on building the contacts formanufacturing and getting my financial stability back in place, so I soldsneakers and taught. I even had a pretty solid ebay page and that carried methrough 2010 into 2011 and allowed me to make enough money to keep producingshoes. From 2009 to 2011 my focus was on making shoes. In 2010 I made a runningshoe and I sold it at the market as well. I also had a Facebook page and I usedmy fan page to sell those as well. (Big shout out to Clay in Maryland who wasthe first person to purchase a pair online). However, I still did not have areal marketing plan. So I guess in short I didn’t execute anything. I simplymade shoes, took them and sold them. In 2011 the local market that I set up inwas raided because there were tons of counterfeits there. The market was shutdown and even the legitimate small biz people basically lost the ability to setup. I hadn’t planned for this, but I my ebay account was also closed. In July of2011 I literally lost all of the opportunities for making money on my sneakersand by selling sneakers. I had another huge setback. I took the summer andreorganized everything, but I still didn’t come up with a plan. I knew I had asolid sneaker business so I focused on that and I still made shoes. In 2011 Ilaunched The Allen casual shoe, but I didn’t really care about it. I did italmost to save face.
When I started social media was not asprevalent, unless you count myspace. I slowly implemented Facebook into myplans and I had over 500 likes on my fan page, but I was not selling any of myshoes. I had moved my sneaker shop to Amazon.com and since that was doing verywell, I basically used The Allen casual shoe as a giveaway to customers whowere paying above retail for limited release sneakers. I think that was myfirst real marketing plan. This is what I have been doing since I launched theAmazon store in October 2011. I finally (August 2012) have what I think is asolid marketing plan, but it’s definitely ridiculous that I went 3 yearswithout any real direction.
Your love for sneakers surely had a huge impacton wanting to start your own shoe company. Would you say that you saw anuntapped market of tennis shoes that “Arch” could capitalize on or did you feelthe need to compete with other brands with the idea that your designs werebetter?
As an educator, I was the cool professor/teacher. I wore Jordans to work andbasically I’ve always loved sneakers. When I started ARCH, as I said earlier,it was to pick up where I left off with Sho-Shot. I wanted to get intoathletics. If I were to say I saw a market, I would be lying. However, now Iactually do have a demographic that I am trying to target. I do see an areathat has openings. There are a lot of brands out there in the casual/athleticshoe market. By default I’m in competition with these other brands, but I seemyself as a solid alternative. I know my costs and I work primarily alone. Isometimes call on Ian Gale who is a super talented graphic artist from Barbados, but because I primarilywork alone, I know my costs and I don’t have to pass costs on to my customers.I don’t plan to grow to the extent that I am not an active part of the company.I feel that if I can come up with a flagship casual shoe (The Allen) I canliterally leave it unchanged and simply play around with materials to keep ittimely. In other words, I don’t look to outperform other companies, I’m notfinancially able to do that, but I can give a person a shoe that uses greatmaterials and style at cost point that is attractive.
CG097 II running shoe in cobalt, yellow and black 
CG097 II Running shoe in gray, red and black 
CG097 II Running shoe in black and yellowYou first started with your “CG097” running shoethat you would sale out of a vendor booth at a popular flea market in Memphis,TN. Those sold out solely with customers who were shopping at the market. Youthen ventured into your “Allen” casual tennis shoe and you just released the“CG097 II” which is your second edition of running shoes. I’m interested inknowing how the designing process is when coming up with your blueprints. I’msure it’s not just drawing a sketch and shipping it off. Is there a lot oftechnology involved?
No there is not a lot of technology involved at all. Actually the first shoe Imade was The Tori. (my shoes are named after my children except for the CG097which is named after my point guard at Crawford H.S. in San Diego, CourtneyGraham-Courtney was murdered in San Diego in 2010 and the 097 is my Navy Bootcamp company.) I sold both the Tori and the CG at the market. With the CG097IIrunning shoe I kind of followed suit with the first CG. When I was testing thefirst CG I became a bit of a novice runner. I couldn’t make a running shoe andsell without testing it. I couldn’t do that. With the second running shoe Iknew I was a better with a shoe that allowed my foot to move more naturally. Itook cues from the Nike Free and from the Puma Faas 300 and combined them tomake the new CG. I often take cues from tried and true styles and then I add myown flavor. My design technique is primarily a form of patchwork, but with thenew CG I brought on Ian Gale and he designed that based on my feedback. Overallthough, I simply sketch, scan and then work on renderings with my manufacturer,so it is very straightforward.
To get into a little bit of the history before“Arch” you first started with an eBay store that got shut down, and the flea market in which you alsosold exclusive sneakers also got shut down because of counterfeiters from othervendors. With both businesses’ bombing around the same time, how did you keeppushing? When you’re use to making a set income and it all gets taken away, I’msure that has to have some kind of effect on you, right?
Great question. In 2011 I hadsuccessfully been operating my ebay store and I was making a significant amountof money. I talk about this on my blog at the CCB website. I go into greatdetail about how unfair the whole process that ebay and paypal handled thematter. I don’t like to dwell on things, but at the same time my ebay accountwas closed, the local market was shut down as well, but that was simply amatter of time. I was the only person in the market allowed to keep my shoesout on the table because I had receipts from Nike and Footlocker for mypurchases. My shoes were real. The other vendors were selling knock offs, andthe sad thing was while I made a pretty good amount of money, these guys weremaking between 10K and 20K a month on counterfeits. When that market was bustedon average over 5000 people a weekend were visiting. This was a crazy amount oftraffic.
Anyway, back to the question. I thinkcertain things take place to make you reconsider your efforts. That June Iliterally lost my living income and for almost three months I had to reorganizemy business. I became a wholeseller to the people who were selling on websitesand ebay. Since I no longer had a paypal account, I had to literally figure outhow to earn money. I submitted my personal store website to Amazon.com and ittook almost another three months to get approved. I finally was up and runningagain by November which is when I began work on The Allen and it released inJanuary of this year.
In order to answer your question I will saythis, if you aren’t really paying attention and rolling along, you will encountersituations that force you to adjust. The difference between people who succeedand those who give up is persistence and effort. It also takes a lot ofresearch. When these things happened to my business I began reading businessbooks and learning different tactics and I learned to organize my thoughts andfind people who helped to build dreams instead of hindering my process. Thiswas vital. In short, the bad situation became a good situation.
One day you can have something and the next it’sgone. What did that experience teach you about saving your money?
Saving money… I am not really saving as much as reinvesting money into thingsthat I feel are a sure bet. Saving money is needed for the future obviously,but realizing that things can be here one day and gone the next actuallymotivated me to make more things happen.
I am currently worried more aboutincreasing the amount of money I have in order to develop more ideas for ARCHand to maintain the Amazon sneaker store. I think people who sit around tryingto save are the same people who are afraid to take a chance. I’ve hit rockbottom before, so I am unafraid to try different things. If I lose, I lose. Istand up, shake it off and get over it. I have a tagline for the company, StayMotivated. That is why I chose that tag. If you stay motivated you can keeppushing forward.
I’ve learned that saving money is afallacy. In order to make money, your money has to be at work, but it can’t befoolish. Right now, I would have to say that I’m on the borderline of being agood business person and a little foolish. I keep making shoes although I amnot selling any. I think though that I am preparing for people to begin seeingthe brand and actually saying, “Hey, those look good, I think I’ll try it.” MaybeI’m wrong, but right now I think this is what I should be doing.
You were back at it again after hitting rockbottom. You opened up an Amazon Store (click on the link here) . In fact you still host your amazon store and it’s your main source ofincome which means you’re not doing badly on sneaker sales. Amazon is not like eBay,you have to go through a channel of commands to get approved. What was thatprocess like and while in limbo how did you continue to move your product?
I kind of covered this earlier, butduring the process of being approved for Amazon, I sold wholesale through myown personal website. Instead of making 100 dollars on a pair of sneakers, Ionly made 10-20 dollars because I was selling in bulk. I had to stay afloat somy goal was to turn shoes/money over quickly. I would bring the money in, paymy bills, and then take the rest and buy more shoes in bulk and flip it again.
Allen Navy Blue x Perry Denim Watch
ARCH Casual Sand x Snow Patrol Perry Watch
Big Boi of OutKast representing RumbatimeARCH casual teamed up in collaboration withRumbatime to use their Perry Watch as a complimentary addition to each casualshoe, which is available on your site for purchase. How were you able to reachout to Rumbatime which is in New York and convince them that your company wouldbe perfect to house this product?
Rumbatime is a great watch company. Ialways liked their cool, stylish, playful take on classic silhouettes. As abrand they kind of exude the classic style with a modern edge at a great pricepoint. Their philosophy and marketing attracted me and I thought that theirwatch would complement my shoes well. I reached out to them and decided topurchase the watches and include them in any sell of the casual shoe Iattained. This is one of the recent marketing ideas I had. Remember I reallyhadn’t thought about a way to market my brand. The ARCH x Rumbatimecollaboration is a very cool, classic combination and I think it will make adifference and show people interested in ARCH that I appreciate their business.
I can only imagine the multitasking you gothrough on a daily basis to please your customers who come from all over theworld to browse your site through internet searches. Do you have any employeesor do you work alone?
I have always worked alone until 2 weeksago. I used to be the designer, artist, web designer, shipping and receiving,buyer, customer service and courier for ARCH. This is a business without anydowntime at all. I am always working on something. Not to mention I decidedthis year to develop and work on my writing career, which adds even more pressureto an already busy day. While it is time consuming, it’s what I want to do. Iwake up and I feel good about building my business. I hired my first employee(cheers). It was only in a part time capacity, but it shows growth. As a matterof fact, hiring my newbie (thanks Co Co) has actually allowed me to get myshoes unpacked and posted. The shoes sat for almost a month on the floor of myliving room while I was basically running the Amazon store. Since actuallybringing someone in, although honestly I can’t afford to do this, has enabledme to actually incorporate my new marketing plans and become more focused.
Your “Allen causal shoe” is very simplistic indesign. There aren’t a lot of huge logos or funky colors. I would say this shoeis more for everyday wear solely for comfort, although it’s still very capableof transitioning into a fashion shoe based on how it is styled as I haveshowcased in the pictures above. Was having a transitional shoe your primaryfocus in determining its look?
Definitely. I used to be a teacher and college professor. When I was in my 20sI could get away with wearing Adidas and Nike to work. I was still cool enoughto pull that off. As I got older, I knew that I needed a shoe that would allowme to stand up all day in a classroom, but I didn’t like the styles that wereout there. I wanted something clean, cool and casual. Something that couldactually be dressed up if needed, and could be subtle and appropriate. I knew Iwanted the ultimate casual Friday shoe. The Allen is my standard. It is a shoethat I can simply change the lining, or materials and the whole look of theshoe changes. If I could compare it to cars, The Allen is like my E Class. Itis a daily driver that is just cool enough to be used on date night or at theoffice casually.
Who is your target market and why did you decideto pursue that particular demographic?
I guess I can say I’m pulling a HarrisonT. Crite. I’m catering to men who like fashion and realize that wearing Jordansdoesn’t mean you are dressing well. In other words, I’m not gunning after theunder 25 market although anyone can wear the brand. My target market is the28-49 year old male who appreciates a nice pair of denims, khaki, cargos and astylish shirt, but doesn’t want to wear a hard bottom shoe all of the time or aboot. I also realized after selling other brands for so long that althoughthere are brands out there that cater to men who are casual and cool, theyoften have a price range that exceeds daily wear. It’s like this, I love ColeHahn, but when I pay 400 for a pair of shoes it definitely is not going to be adaily wear type of shoe. My goal is to give the guy that will wear a pair ofBalenciaga Patchworks one day a solid alternative for daily wear. A shoe he cango to a bar in and when someone drops a drink on his shoes, he might get upsetbut he will walk away and say, “I can’t believe he dropped a drink on myARCHs.” Lol
What’s up next for “Arch Shoes”? What are youplanning on releasing for the winter collection? Can we be looking for any newstyles or colorways?
What’s next… continuing to learn how toreach out to the market and get people to discover ARCH. Right now, I’vefinally developed what I think is a strong strategy. What many new brands whoare working from scratch, on their own without mentors, fail to realize is thattrademarks are important, but all of that stuff doesn’t matter if people don’tknow you exist. What I recently learned is that distribution is king. Now Iknew this, but remember I was working on a local, small level. A brand isn’t abrand unless it can be sold on bigger websites or be purchased by stores. Inorder to this you either have to go to trade shows, which I am not really readyto do, or you have to find a way to reach a large audience. For me this hasbeen adding ARCH to my Amazon store. Amazon has allowed me the ability to beseen by a lot of people. I actually signed up for Amazon Ads and although thishas not produced dividends (I’ve only been using it since July 30th)my shoes have been seen by more people than I ever could have directed to mysite through social media. The next thing is basically beginning to convertimpressions and clicks into purchases. That is the short term.
In the long term I have redesigned andgiven the Allen what I feel are better design cues for the Fall release whichshould be arriving at the beginning of September. I decided for the fall to usea combination of suede and denim to make 4 new colorways. I removed the quiltedlining and I am now using a leather lining. I also changed the insoles to thesame insoles I used in the running shoe which is a vented breathable insolethat is cushioned. All of these things I think will add to the quality. I amalso looking at a winterized version of the running shoe, but these are thenext two things.
Oh the colorways for the Fall release areas follow, Denim Rust, Denim Oak, Denim Night and Red Wine and an Olive versionof the shoes (which is a bit of a venture for me on both of those colors).
What would be your “I made it moment” whenseeing the true fruits of your labor paying off?
Honestly, I already feel that I’ve madeit. Now actually selling the shoes would make me feel good, but success for meis about good friends, and family. As far as ARCH is concerned, being able toget feedback like the feedback I have on my Amazon store would be a good start.I’ve had customers write me and thank me personally although they are the oneswho should be thanked. But I guess the real “I made it moment” would be when Ireach my target of selling 6000-12000 pair of shoes a year. I really want whatI’m doing to be special. I’ve always found it funny how people feel unique in apair of shoes when there are over 100,000 people wearing the exact same shoe.
I guess I will always be looking for an, “Imade it moment,” and I think this is okay. I’m trying to improve and getbetter, so I guess seeing the fruits of my labor pay off will be when I am ableto hire 10 people and provide them with better lives and to be able toregularly give of myself and myresources to help other people. I think that is the educator in me though.
If you weren't making tennis shoes, what wouldyou be doing? Without a doubt teaching and writing more.
ARCH Website: www.arch-usa.com
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