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Selling Stylish Women’s Shoes to Accommodate Orthotics
Virginia Davis, PT, MA
Gini Davis, PT, MA, has a shoe fetish. She was in "seventh heaven" when she went to the World Shoe Show in Las Vegas two years ago to survey over 1 million square feet of shoes at the largest footwear trade show in the United States. But she went there looking for women’s shoes with three purposes in mind: 1) They needed to be able to accommodate an orthotic; 2) they had to have an element of style along with comfort; and 3) they could not be sold by anyone else in New Orleans.
Selling women’s shoes is not a typical undertaking for a physical therapist. But it was a natural extension of a unique service provided by Crescent City Physical Therapy, New Orleans, La. – the evaluation and treatment of foot and ankle disorders, injuries and disabilities, such as plantar fasciatis, heel pain and Achilles tendonitis, along with a wide variety of other types of traumatic and surgical diagnoses.
Davis, who has been making orthotics for about 25 years, explains how she arrived at the innovative idea of selling shoes at her clinics: "I kept hearing my female patients complain that their orthotics only fit in their tennis shoes, not in their dressier, fashionable shoes, so I did some investigating to see what shoes were available. Occasionally I would find shoes that were somewhere between fashionable and orthopedic that didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, but unfortunately, because women’s shoes change with fashion, they would disappear by the next season."
She even spoke to shoe designer Donald Pliner and asked him if he could make some of his styles indefinitely, but “he looked at me like I was crazy, so I decided to do something no one else in New Orleans was doing – find the right shoes and make them available to women. Once Davis found vendors willing to sell a small number of shoes, she invited past female patients to a trunk show at one of her clinics and ended up selling 56 pairs of shoes in just two days.
"I had women cry when they were able to finally find shoes that weren’t ugly, that were pretty enough to wear to a wedding, to church, out to dinner, and tell me I was doing a wonderful service for women." Davis’s shoe business is doing so well that she’s moved beyond trunk shows and selling shoes by appointment only. She will soon build out a space in one of her clinics that will have a shoe display area in the storefront, and two entrances – one for physical therapy and the other for the shoe store. The shoe store will be open three to four days a week with regular hours.
Her specialty business niche is growing rapidly, thanks to word of mouth and repeat customers who come in and buy as many as six pairs of shoes at time. Davis says, “It’s very gratifying to be able to help women, and let them know that having bad feet doesn’t mean they have to be relegated to wearing ugly shoes.” Another source of gratification is that it’s an all-cash business. "For those of us who have been in managed care for many years, having to settle for what insurers will pay us, it’s a nice change to be handed a credit card or check for the full amount of our services."
Davis notes, "It’s a very personal service-oriented venture. Unlike most shoe stores where customers are on their own, here we’re able to give people much more intensive assistance. Many customers haven’t had their feet measured in many years, and if one foot is larger than the other, we can make adjustments to the inside of the shoe. Our shoes also come in many widths, and if we don’t have certain ones in stock, we take orders." Davis currently offers numerous shoe styles from six different vendors.
A physical therapist for 37 years, and a private practitioner for the last 21 years, Davis began to develop an interest in feet in the mid-1970s when she worked in an acute care hospital with an orthopedist who had a runners’ clinic. As a runner herself, she began to learn about feet and foot injuries, and how to make orthotics from a physical therapist in New Orleans who became her foot mentor. Davis belongs to a foot club made up of physicians, podiatrists, and PTs that meets every couple of months to discuss their cases, both surgical and non-surgical, and share their questions and outcomes.
"While many orthopedists send patients with knee or shoulder problems to physical therapists, they usually don’t think of sending patients with foot and ankle problems for physical therapy," observes Davis. She advises therapists to spend time talking with physicians about what they can do for foot/ankle problems, and send them articles written by PTs, such as case studies, describing the specific treatments they’re using for those problems. "I also encourage my patients to tell their physicians what relief they’ve received from physical therapy, and thank them for the referral for physical therapy – a good way to massage the physician’s ego."
For physical therapists that make orthotics, Davis recommends they visit orthopedists to let them know they can send their patients to the PT for an evaluation, show them the orthotics, and give them ordering information. Davis says she doesn’t want to compete with podiatrists, who also sell orthotics, but rather market her shoes to them. She also refers patients to orthotists for certain types of orthotics that she doesn’t make. "I tell patients who wear orthotics-- whether I make them, or someone else makes them-- we have the shoes to accommodate them in a stylish way."
Contact Virginia Davis at (504) 895-0638 or gini@crescentcitypt.com.
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