Day job ditched, sole focus pays off

Suzan Campbell, of Mismatched Shoes in Winton. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY
Suzan Campbell, of Mismatched Shoes in Winton. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY
It was a perfect fit.

When Suzan Campbell first spied Mismatched Shoes at a market in Australia while on a family holiday two years ago, she was hooked.

Discovering the shoes originated in Venezuela, she got in touch with the company and told the owners she wanted to bring the quirky and colourful footwear to New Zealand - as the company's first international distributor.

Acknowledging she took a risk, she started with 120 pairs but when it got to the stage that she was flying in 1600 pairs at a time - with a costly freight bill - she decided to bite the bullet.

So Mrs Campbell and her husband, Craig, who live in Winton, got a mortgage to allow them to buy a 20-foot container full of shoes.

The couple became the wholesalers for the brand in New Zealand and Mrs Campbell eventually left her part-time three-day-a-week job to focus full-time on shoes.

She operates from a garage in Winton, with about seven people throughout New Zealand distributing the shoes.

With few overheads, it was working well, she said during yesterday's Southern Field Days at Waimumu.

The shoes were ‘‘extremely comfortable and a good price'' and the brand had gained ‘‘almost like a cult following'' , she said.

In fact, when she got her first pair of shoes, her husband would implore her to wear plain shoes when they were heading to Invercargill for a busy day in town, as people kept stopping to admire them and ask where they could get them.

While a lot of the future plans were ‘‘under wraps'', some new designs, including platforms, were coming, she said.

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