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Feature Sneaker Villa Mixes Business With Pleasure Sneaker Villa is doing more with its business than just selling footwear. Rather, Jason Lutz, CEO of the Reading, PA-based company, is utilizing his entrepreneurial skills to further help the stores’ customers and neighborhoods. Rather than operating stores in the usual buyer and seller fashion, Sneaker Villa is proving to the retail world how its business truly cares about the people who come through its doors.
Launched in Exeter, PA 17 years ago, Sneaker Villa is now a 16-unit chain, with locations in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Reading, Lancaster, York, Norristown and Harrisburg, PA. Its most recent openings were last month, with one each in York and Norristown, PA. Plans call for an estimated 15 to 20 additional locations by 2008, with the company taking into account whether out-of-state expansion should venture west toward OH or cities such as Elmira, Binghamton and Syracuse, NY. The stores are typically in freestanding urban, inner-city neighborhood locations and range from 4,000 sq.ft. to 5,000 sq.ft. Referring to his preference for freestanding locations, rather than mall-based stores, Lutz explains, “We feel fashion starts on the streets. In the neighborhoods and cities there is spending power in the streets. We want to develop partnerships with those neighborhoods.”
Sneaker Villa sells footwear from top vendors such as Adidas, Reebok, PRO-Keds, Nike and Townsend, as well as softgoods, which make up 45 percent of sales, from Akademiks. Customers are predominately male ranging in age from 12 to 24. The company doesn’t define its customer by race, but rather a clientele influenced by the hip-hop culture. The company generated sales of $25 million last year and is projecting 2006 sales of $30 million and 2007 sales of $40 million.
The family-owned business appreciates its clientele and gives back to the community. “My ultimate goal is to build a model of community partnerships, working with schools. We are trying to leverage our influence on customers who typically come into our stores once a week to hang out and see what is new in the neighborhood. It is more of a social gathering. Employees serve as role models,” Lutz says. Sneaker Villa demands that each store performs 250 hours of community service per year, such as neighborhood cleanup programs. The company contributes to educational incentives, sponsors Boys and Girls Clubs, works with local YMCAs, partners with police departments to keep guns off of the streets and supports reading programs at local schools.
Working with a neighboring school district, Sneaker Villa introduced the “It Pays to Get A’s” program. For every “A” students receive in school, the company awarded a $5 Sneaker Villa discount coupon. And to further promote class attendance, the company created “The 90 Percent Club,” which rewarded those students with a 90 percent school attendance record with a school dance, for which Sneaker Villa hired a DJ. “We see some of the same kids coming into our stores everyday. It’s one thing when a principal or teacher tells them to come to school. But when a community manager comes and tells them, it has an impact. These are two examples of how we can leverage our power of what we do. It’s not traditional,” states Lutz.
Last November, Sneaker Villa sold a majority share of its family ownership to the venture capital groups Catalytic Capital, LLC, a New York and Los Angeles-based company, along with Haystack, LLC, a group of private investors. The partners jointly invested more than $5 million into Sneaker Villa.
For more information, contact Jason Lutz, Sneaker Villa, 645 Penn Street, Second Floor, Reading, PA 19601; 610-374-5674; Email: info@sneakervilla.com ; Web site: www.sneakervilla.com . |