Collective Brands to peddle shoes in the Philippines

From Bloomberg News
Collective Brands Inc., owner of the Payless ShoeSource and Stride Rite chains, will bring its first stores to the Philippines next year.

The retailer will open as many as seven stores in the country, Chief Executive Officer Matthew Rubel said Tuesday. Collective Brands is working with a franchise partner, Stores Specialists Inc., based in the Philippines.

The move marks the next stage of international growth for Collective Brands, which will also expand the number of stores it operates in the Middle East and open in Russia next year, Rubel said. Shoes are a category on which consumers in emerging markets tend to spend as their incomes increase, and Filipino consumers already have “high footwear consumption,” he said.

“When we look at the consumer in that marketplace, and we look at the competitive set, we don’t believe that anybody is delivering style, price and quality, and so we believe that there’s a unique opportunity for this to be a material business,” Rubel said.

He estimated that the Philippine market might support as many as 80 stores. The shoe retailer is also looking at other emerging countries in Asia, Rubel said, declining to specify.

Payless has more than 4,500 stores in North and South America and the Middle East.