Through wars, recessions and family conflicts, Ingledew’s Shoes has survived a century in business.
Ingledew’s is one of British Columbia’s premier footwear specialty businesses with six locations. “We’re a little company but we’ve built a model that’s worked for 100 years,” says Bill Ingledew, grandson of the company’s founder.
The model was built on the cornerstones of providing quality footwear, a vast range of fittings and attentive service. Its stores offer personalized fitting and an extensive range of shoes from top manufacturers around the world. Ingledew’s also carries its own custom shoe line and accessories such as handbags and socks.
It started when William Wright Ingledew opened a shoe store on Granville Street in Vancouver in 1915. The Ontario-born entrepreneur started working for Eaton's at age 15 and six year later followed a friend to Vancouver where he learned about the shoe business from a family he stayed with.
In 1925, the store relocated across the street to accommodate the expansion of the next-door Hudson’s Bay store. In 1971, the store moved down the block to 577 Granville and to 535 Granville in 1985.
William Sr.’s eldest son, Garfield (Gar), joined in 1921 and two other of his five sons, William Jr. and Kenneth, followed in 1927 and 1934 respectively. Gar became president in 1928 and held the position until he retired in 1978.
The Second World War presented difficulties in sourcing leather shoes and even fabric shoes were often in short supply. Sometimes the store closed for days until inventory was available.
In 1949, a year after William Sr.’s death, the brothers opened a store in Victoria that operated until 1981 when the building was sold. (The Ingledew’s Victoria location now is in the Hillside Shopping Centre.)
From 1921 to 1971, Gar Ingledew served as president and the company had some ups and downs, including an ill-fated attempt to expand to the United States. Ingledew’s bought a shoe business in Seattle in 1959, but two years later a monorail for the World’s Fair was built right in front of the store.
“It was a disaster,” Mr. Ingledew says. “The store was shut down and sold. That was our one American experience.”
Gar had tried to convince Bill, his nephew, to join the company after he finished high school.
“I was uncomfortable putting all my eggs into that basket then,” Mr. Ingledew recalls. “My father (Kenneth) always counselled against going into the shoe business and said ‘you’ll never make a nickle.’ The money they had made was from real estate they bought and sold.”
His father also didn’t want his son to have to deal with the animosity within the company, as the three second-generation brothers were in constant conflict. Gar Ingledew was an astute buyer with a wealth of contacts, but a tyrant to work for.
Bill Ingledew attended the University of British Columbia, graduating with a degree in chemistry and economics before taking his MBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He went on to earn a PhD and considered an academic career, “but some of my teachers were academics who had never worked in a real business environment and that troubled me. I thought coming to Ingledew’s would be a great chance to get involved in a business and see if I could make it successful.”
Just as his father predicted, “I had a tough time adjusting to my uncle and there was a lot of conflict. It was really stressful,” Mr. Ingledew recalls.
He came on board in 1971 and took over as president in 1978 when Gar retired. However, his uncle still came to the office frequently to leave notes telling his nephew how he thought he should be running the company.
Mr. Ingledew’s cousin, Don (son of William Jr.) had joined the company in 1969 and Bill’s younger brother, John, in 1980.
“The three of us operated the company for many years and we were determined not to have a team that was dysfunctional as the previous generation,” Mr. Ingledew says. “There was no way we would let this triumvirate disintegrate that way. We were an effective functioning group, all with different skills and abilities, and it made a difference.”
Prior to Bill’s arrival, the company had been a dress shoe business. “I quickly realized this wasn’t the way the world was going. People would always wear dress shoes, but there was a growing interest in lifestyle and comfort and casual wear would be more important,” he says.
So, Ingledew’s expanded its casual shoe line-up and those now account for about 70 per cent of business.
The company started sourcing shoes in Europe and Mr. Ingledew and his partners took a hard look at their shopping mall locations.
“Once the shopping mall phenomenon took hold, we expanded to a number of those centres, but some were second grade and were inappropriate for us. We needed critical mass to be successful,” Mr. Ingledew explains. “At one point, we had 10 stores in B.C. and now we have six, all in regional malls or downtown cores and that has been a good decision.”
When the third generation came on board, a major recession and inflationary pressure on the price of shoes were other obstacles to overcome. Then Garfield Ingledew died in 1991.
“We had to buy out his interest when we were struggling to make a go economically. But we were able to make a deal with his estate to pay it off over time,” Mr. Ingledew says.
Mr. Ingledew adopted an unusual strategy during recessions.
“Typically retailers pull back as a defensive measure but the greatest opportunities for growth are at that time."
For 20 years, a fourth generation worked for Ingledew’s when Bill’s daughter Pascale came to the company in 1986 after high school, despite her father’s objections. She started on the floor selling shoes, quickly becoming a top salesperson and then manager of a store.
“She was hungry to learn and ultimately my choice to help with merchandising,” Mr. Ingledew says. She also helped the company attract younger buyers before she left in 2010 to pursue teaching as a career to have more time with her young family.
“I’m happy as her father but miss her presence,” he says.
Ingledew’s still doesn’t cater to children, teens or young adults, but they now get customers in their 30s, when all used to be 40-plus. Older adults have become more fashion-forward too, says Mr. Ingledew. “We are selling footwear to seniors that we would never have contemplated showing them 25 to 30 years ago.”
Ingledew’s has maintained its commitment to fitting people properly by measuring clients’ feet and Mr. Ingledew has found that more than half of new customers are not wearing their proper shoe size. His office is in a warehouse building seven minutes from Ingledew’s new flagship store at 900 Hastings St. in Vancouver’s upscale financial district and he often drops by the store to fit customers himself.
“I can learn more in half an hour in a store than looking at a bunch of reports for hours,” he notes. “I have regular customers and many tend to be problem fitters and it’s important for me to stay in touch with those people. I’m there at least once a week to see what’s going on.”
One of Ingledew’s unique attributes is also one of its biggest challenges and that’s keeping an extensive range of sizes: “It’s a huge investment and in today’s environment, few stores are able to spend the kind of money you need to, to provide custom-fitting shoes.”
The Internet has also dramatically changed the way people shop and Ingledew’s is preparing to ramp up its online shopping component, with a new website launching in the fall.
“Our website will encourage people within proximity to go into a store and experience having their shoes properly fitted,” Mr. Ingledew says. “But there are a lot of people who don’t live in Vancouver and we have people across Canada and States who can’t get to our stores. It’s going to be very difficult to provide the same level of service online, so that will be a challenge.”
Bill’s cousin Don has retired and his brother John is retiring soon, so he has taken on a new partner: Pierre LeFebvre, whose father was a senior executive at Savage Shoes and who was Ingledew’s agent in Italy for many years.
Mr. Ingledew realizes the company’s family chain ends with him, but he has no plans to leave yet. “I’m planning on staying as long as I’m valuable to the company.”
Follow Report on Small Business on Pinterest and Instagram
Join our Small Business LinkedIn group
Add us to your circles
Sign up for our weekly newsletter