A passion for skate shoes from another era has turned into an international business for a Sunshine West man.
Ben Brooks, a long-time collector of skate shoes, said he and many other members of the skating community had longed for the return of shoe designs from the mid-’90s and early 2000s.
“People have been pushing the big companies to start issuing the older models, but there’s nothing out there,” he said.
“I’d seen a lot of complaints and wanted to do something about it.”
Mr Brooks soon turned his desire into action and ERAone Footwear was born.
“It wasn’t a big decision I made to start a business – it all just sort of snowballed after seeing that gap in the market,” Mr Brooks said.
He started with an initial run of 1000 pairs and said the rapid rate in which they sold confirmed high demand.
“We shipped 500 off to Canada and took 250 pairs each for Australia and the USA,” he said.
“We were pleased with how it sold and I’m hoping to have a line of shoes available soon.
“There’s a second shoe just about ready to go and a third one in the works.”
Mr Brooks said there’d been some learning curves along the way.
“We cater for sizes 8 to 14, but what we found was that we sold out of sizes 10 to 11 really quickly and had a few 8, 9 and 14s left over, so that’s something we’ll adjust going forward.”
Mr Brooks said he also planned to continue a tradition established with ’90s era footwear.
“In that era, when you bought shoes, you wouldn’t just get shoes – you’d get a spare bag of laces and something free, like stickers and things like bottle openers,” he said.
“We wanted to bring that back. Everyone got two pairs of laces, stickers and a key chain when they purchased our shoes. It doesn’t cost a lot to do that and that’s what it was like back then. Opening the shoe box was an event.”
Details: www.eraonefootwear.com
