It would be the end of an era for the store which opened
more than 80 years ago as Pickford’s Boot Shop — in the days when footwear was sourced nationally.
The shop was also one of the last of its kind — a privately owned destination shoe store not attached to a national chain.
Since buying the shop in 1989, Mr Sinclair had seen major shifts in the retail sector.
"When I came in here, there were five suburban shoe shops and that didn’t include the seven or eight that would be in town."
Footwear used to be made in New Zealand, but imported shoes made by cheap labour deeply impacted the sector, he said.
Online sales had also impacted the market. But for those who had problem feet, trying to buy a pair of properly fitted shoes might become a challenge, he said.
Market trends had impacted his ability to sell the shop to another owner, Mr Sinclair said.
"You can’t sell a shoe shop for love, nor money now. There are two things: young ones don’t want to get into retail and the supply chain (dealing through importers).
"The problem now is that the importers are struggling because there’s not so many independent retailers. So only the big players can deal with the factories overseas — it’s a numbers game."
Mr Sinclair started in the trade as a 17-year-old school leaver working in the shoe department at another of the city’s lost icons — H&J Smith.
After experimenting in other vocations, Mr Sinclair said he decided he wanted to get back into shoe sales and bought the shop off Les Rogerson, who had owned it for 32 years.
Chasing a shoplifter around the city’s streets in his car during pre-mobile phone days was a memory that had stayed with Mr Sinclair.
"I had to follow them through all these streets, but of course then I had to leave them, come back here and report in."
Another was finding a pair of old jandals inside a box meant for new shoes that were no longer there.
- By Toni McDonald
