In the past, footwear production management meant hand-drawn shoe sketches sent back and forth to Asia. It was a time-consuming process requiring a 16 hour flight from New York to Hong Kong and then into Southern China. Luckily, the footwear business has been working behind the scenes, communication channels are easier, and footwear education has advanced greatly which means increased efficiency and sustainability.
Increased efficiency and innovation means 3D printing, digital design, and sample development often shortens production and lead times. You can now ship tech packs back and forth digitally from designer to developer in Asia to perfect your designs.
These footwear production advances over the last five years also means reduced costs on producing a ton of samples and then figuring out what samples people want to move forward with. From there, placing an order, getting that product in, and trying to ship it across the ocean are the next steps.
Finding distributors follows if you don’t own your own retail space or if you’re not doing direct consumer. Depending on the type of shoe, this could take a year to 18 months to complete all of these steps: your footwear idea to concept, design development, all the way to production, and finally to the retail outlets.
The process of taking a shoe from an idea to the retail floor is more efficient today, but still a relatively lengthy process. There will be constant developments happening and regular communication back and forth with your factory partners in a variety of different stages of the shoemaking process. It all depends on the type of shoes you want to design, the type of customer you want to sell to, and ultimately where in the world you can find availability and capacity on both materials and production.
