Manufacturing a perfectly fitted pair of shoes is next to impossible for brands. There are countless styles, fabrics, and numerous labels to cater to these demands. Besides manufacturing the right size, producing multiple styles with unique features is challenging and, hence, customization.
The solution enables customers to try countless styles and couple them with their personal fashion sense. Then comes comfortability, which is absolutely uncompromisable at every level. Therefore, custom shoe designing, a leading name in the footwear industry, offers robust business solutions to your company to cater to every need put forth by customers. By implementing our customization tool, you will get out of the loop of manufacturing a footwear pair and then trying to sell it.
Custom Design Shoes Enables Brands to Produce Footwear that Fits All
Custom made is slowly becoming part of our everyday lives. And there is a reason for it! Forget about our fashion life; personalization has taken a big place in the shows we watch, songs we listen to, and a lot more things. Yes, it is true that the fashion industry was the first one to embrace it with open arms because what fashion stands for is the essence of customization. Custom-made means letting someone design their product, and brands should be the facilitator to turn their dreams into reality. With the advancement of technology, the process of creating something has become even more eventful. The inception of artificial intelligence and its implementation in the fashion and luxury industry has made the transition smoother.
In 2017, a director at US online retailer Zappos answered a call from a frustrated customer whose autistic grandson couldn’t tie shoelaces. Having never considered footwear accessibility, he was surprised to find that Zappos had nothing to offer this customer. He later launched Zappos Adaptive to set that right. Let us introduce you to what custom made is about and why you should care. Retailers, including Nordstrom and Zappos, are exploring the untapped potential of adaptive and inclusive footwear. With a few small tweaks, brands could follow suit.
unwrap BIG deals in our Black Friday event! treat yo'self to something cozy (or cross some names off your list 🎁) at our once-a-year sale today: https://t.co/k9NcxKHvuY pic.twitter.com/pPNPxnliPm
— Zappos.com (@Zappos) November 27, 2020
The number of people who cannot put shoes independently or fit into standard sizes is difficult to measure. Adaptive and inclusive footwear has been historically either ignored or underserved, making it a market with largely untapped potential. According to Lyst, searches for adaptive fashion rose 80 percent in 2019. Coresight Research estimates that the global adaptive apparel market will be worth $349.9 billion by 2023.
These factors also make shoe shopping an incredibly personal task. Therefore, shoe brands have no choice but to embrace personalization. Let us look at the various factors prompting the provision of a made-to-measure footwear solution for brands.
Here are the elements promoting the use of customization in the footwear sector:
- Capitalizes on the Power of Self-Expression
It is undeniable that footwears make our first impression, and wearing uncomfortable or oversized shoes are easily visible and expresses a lot about wearing it. But with custom-designed shoes, brands can offer people numerous chances of making the most attractive footwear that speaks volumes of them. Brands like Adidas and Vans now offer their shoppers countless options to customize their sneakers to reflect their unique style. Customers can choose the color, sole, and laces that appeal most to them to create a pair of sneakers that’s all their own.
- Prevents Neurological Diseases
Besides self-expression, fitting is an essential part of manufacturing any product and especially prudent in shoes. Well-fitting footwear can protect your foot and improve your performance and may lead to lifetime disability among buyers. American disability stylist Stephanie Thomas is a congenital amputee missing digits on her feet, two different sizes. Wearing the wrong size can also have serious health. Tight shoes have a corseting effect, causing corns, calluses, and ingrown toenails in the short term. Longer-term damage can include inflamed nerves, dislocated bones, and loss of sensation in the toes. Therefore, leading brands like Adidas are increasingly using technology to help customers achieve this. With the sportswear giant’s pop-up Speedfactory Lab Experience, designers scan consumers’ feet to get an accurate picture of their length, width, and structure. They also ran on a treadmill while cameras recorded their stride and gait. This data was used to help participants find their perfect running shoe. Since this technology is still relatively new, it’s mainly used to create limited-edition sneakers for runners in select locations.
FUTURECRAFT.STRUNG
Coded thread by thread for speed.
STRUNG is a first-of-its-kind textile innovation that rewrites the rules for performance products. Transforming athlete data directly into design – for a shoe more in tune with anatomy and movement than ever before. pic.twitter.com/8FrRzEpNR1— adidas (@adidas) October 8, 2020
On a similar notion, the design your own shoes online offers solutions to brands where brands can manufacture footwear as per customers’ needs. The luxury houses have the golden opportunity to let their customers feel empowered and enable them to design a funky and cool pair of footwear.
- Finds the Middle-ground
Many brands must have encountered a situation where customers have to wear a plus size or a digit minus shoes. And these create a problem when one is walking or running, and more importantly when someone is into playing sports, such as skateboarding. Like stylist Stephanie Thomas, many people have differently sized feet and are forced to wear the bigger size on both. Several retailers now offer single or mixed-pair shoes to address this.
The resulting test program by Zappos, titled the Single and Different Size Shoes Program, was due to launch in March 2020 but was postponed due to Covid-19. Finally launched in July, it received 1.7 billion media impressions. Seven additional brands have joined since, including Vans, Friendly Shoes, and Ugg. Sales of left and right shoes are surprisingly even — for adults, 51 percent of the single shoes sold to date were left feet, and 49 percent were right, and for children, these figures stand at 53 and 47 percent respectively.
- Brings in More People
Before you start giving the personalization services to people, it is imperative that you understand your target audiences’ needs. Listening to customer feedback and retraining design teams can rectify the skews woven into shoes by designers’ unconscious biases. Anna Sheldon, a senior designer for Global Brands Group’s Italian footwear brand Aquatalia, is currently working on adaptive styles after inclusive design training. Brands have to defy all the preconceived notions they have had to create an alternative foot size. Designers need to think out of the box and consider the footwear customers as customers, not just some cases whose demands can be ignored. If they do, brands are alienating entire populations and leaving money on the table.
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The case is especially true in the case of people with disabilities, as some patients with MS need heavier shoes to accommodate foot drop. At the same time, some people need shearling linings to keep their feet warm because they get pins and needles or numbness. Therefore, brands must bring in more people, especially those who have been deprived of a workable, comfortable, and fashionable pair of footwear.
The Choice is Yours-
From the facts mentioned above, it is evident that modern-day consumers want and demand personalization services and communication. Customization will differ across brands, as their customers will vary, and so will be their needs and demands. It is crucial for brands to realize that if they fail to deliver what is expected of them, they shall fall flat, and customization is that key that can unlock unlimited paths to success and guarantee more return. The customize shoes online by iDesigniBuy is one such helping tool for brands that eases the transition to provide customization and digital features. It enables consumers to gain an entire look at how the designed product looks in 3d, and based on it; they can further proceed for payment. Our customization tool is a successful attempt to balance the creativity and revenue of your ecommerce storefront.
