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*Featured in January 2006 Issue of My Business Magazine, a small business magazine from NFIB, as part of our boot restoration program.

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Shoe repairer stays step ahead

Delaware Cobbler wins national recognition

Source: News Journal
By E. Janenen Nolan
Staff reporter

Delaware Cobbler wins national recognition
By E. Janenen Nolan
Staff reporter

A 38-year old Middletown man has made a profitable and interesting business out of repairing shoes and firefighter boots.

Michael Flood’s work for a national manufacturer of firefighter boots, as well as a fire restoration company, has helped him find a niche in the evolving industry of shoe repair.

It has also helped set him apart from several hundred contestants nominated in Mail Boxes Etc.’s national Most Intriguing Businesses contest. The retail postal and business services chain chose Flood’s shop as on of its top 10 picks in recognition of National Small Business Week earlier this month.

About 10,000 cobblers were working in the United States about 15 years ago, compared with roughly 7,000 today, according to industry representative.

Cobblers had more work when men’s shoes were more expensive, and before women packed their high heels in briefcases, donning sneakers for the commute. Well-worn stilettos required frequent heel replacement, said Tom Costin, chief executive of Soletech, a Massacusetts-based supplier of materials for shoe manufacturers and repairers.

“There aren’t as many repairable shoes coming into shops, and that has had a dramatic impact on the repair business,” he said.
But the work is there.
“We’re always going to have work because people are always going to wear shoes,” said Flood, whose Shoe

Tech business is in downtown Wilmington across from the Ninth Street Book Shop.

He also expanded his repair services, and sought contracts with a fire restoration firm and various Wilmington companies.

“Flood branched out, and that is what it takes for a shoe repairer to do well,” said Costin, a board memeber of Footwear Industries of America, a trade organization based in Washington, D.C.
About eight years ago, Flood began using special techniques and materials to repair firefighters boots sold by Ohio-based Total Fire Group, a national supplier of gear for firefighters.

Today, about 4 percent of Flood’s business comes from work on Pro-Warrington leather firefighter boots, priced between $100 and $300.

Total Fire refers customers to Flood, who returns the boots to the customer but bills the company, said Diane Bible, Total Fire vice president.

“He’s willing to do anything he needs to do to get the job done,” Bible said.

Flood got his start in the shoe repair business when he was 15 years old. He was hitchhiking to his job as a dishwasher at an International House of Pancakes restaurant. A local businessman, owner of a shoe-repair shop picked him up and said, “You don’t want to

wash dishes. Come work for me,” Flood recalled.
He worked for the elder cobbler until 1980, when he decided to try automotive repair and then installation of shoe-repair machinery. But by 1986, Flood was back to repairing shoes. He worked as a tech for Fast Feet, which had several regional shops, including one in Concord Mall. Flood worked at the mall and other company-owned sites until approaching Fast Feet’s owner about buying the shop on Market Street Mall in Wilmington.
By 1991, Flood and his wife, Tina, were business owners. About five years ago, they moved their shop to Ninth Street.
Shoe Tech’s annual sales are about $140,000, Flood said, adding that he began making a profit about four years ago. The average cost to repair a woman’s shoe is between $5 and $7. Men’s shoes cost about $40 to fix, depending on the repairs, Flood said. And he charges between $10 (for simple repairs) and $50 (for new soles) to repair the firefighter boots, he said.
With his experience, Flood can be considered a shoe-repair expert. But he doesn’t really like to be called a cobbler.
“That’s the old-timers,” he said. “When I hear cobbler, I think of a Norman Rockwell picture.”