“Let’s go to the beach?”, asked a friend of Rita Melo, the middle of last week. The businesswoman, Member of the brand of shoes Xuz, born in 2008, reinventing clogs and sabots portugueses, said no and, on the other side of the table that decorates the company’s Office at Lx Factory, in Lisbon, Maria do Carmo Alvim, the other half of the business, ri-se.
From year to year, Xuz has been double the volume of sales. Started with 300, 600 and later in the first half of this year reached 10 thousand pairs sold, the same brand that had achieved in 2010. By the end of the year count up to 15 thousand. “Our spare dossier already is an important thing,” says Rita. With the novelty of this season are more points of sale in the North (Porto and Braga). Therefore, who want to see is in the Office, at 20.30, surrounded by samples, shoes and cardboard boxes.
In Xuz, microenterprise by definition (has fewer than 10 employees and invoice less than 10 million euros per year), in addition to the television ex-produtora Rita and ex-quadro of SIBS Maria do Carmo, works just the desktop. But there’s more 52 jobs involved in the production of these shoes, as can be read on cartõezinhos bound to clogs, sandals and boots that come out of one of about 70 points of sale (mostly boutiques) selling the brand. “Just missed the same us,” they say.
The idea of the punches was born by nostalgia in 2008. Months later, for the winter, the two friends and partner researchers investigating how to turn them into boots. At a trade show where they sold the North found the typical clogs solution. And despite the initial resistance, managed to convince suppliers that it was possible to do them with the soles of the typical Portuguese clogs. And what was once impossible a year ago was already copied. Result: this year, there are already patented models. “One thing was inspired in what we do, another is wanting to do equal”, Maria do Carmo. “And it is a pity that the Portuguese factories are doing it,” he adds. In the fight against piracy is worth them that make the series short and commit themselves in the variety of models. And, to temper the bad bring counterfeiting, originality of design earned them the revelation Prize GAPI-prizes innovation in footwear Sector, delivered in September at Dusseldorf.
About 15% of the total volume of sales are exports. Maria do Carmo Alvim enjoyed seeing the Xuz in New York, Rita says that the important thing now is to “consolidate the current markets”. “After atiramo us to new things.” Scandinavia is the main destination of shoes that come out of Portugal. Netherlands and Germany are other possible destinations and also are already in Canada. “A client our led the concept beyond”, explains Rita Melo.