Shoes.com beats a path to higher sales

Shoes.com, a business unit of Brown Shoe Co. Inc., had another record year in 2005. In its just released annual report, Brown Shoe says Shoes.com posted sales of $34.9 million, an increase of 97.6% from web sales of $17.7 million in 2004.

By comparison, total sales for Brown Shoe, No. 159 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, grew 18% to $2.3 billion in 2005 from $1.9 billion in 2004. “We are pleased with the progress made by our e-commerce sites, especially Shoes.com," says chairman and CEO Ron Fromm. "Shoes.com has achieved a compound growth rate of approximately 100% since being acquired by Brown Shoe in 2001 as we`ve significantly expanded our brand and product offerings."

In addition to Shoes.com, Brown Shoe also owns and operates FamousFootwear.com, Naturalizer.com, BassShoes.com, DrSchollsShoes.com, LifeStride.com and CarlosShoes.com.

Brown Shoe doesn’t break out e-commerce sales for its other brands. Lisa Dyson, director of e-commerce and customer relationship marketing at Famous Footwear, will speak at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 5-7 in Chicago in a session entitled "Making Cross-Channel Inventory Management Work".