News

Shoe store using scanners to size up customers

July 27, 2003

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The kids' shoe market is a crowded place, but Olly Shoes is trying to get a leg up with scanning technology that can tell a child's shoe size in seven seconds.

According to a report in The Washington Post, the company, which opened its first two stores in Toronto over the past two years, will move into two D.C.-area malls this summer with a technology that scans a child's foot and matches it to the best-fitting shoes in stock. The company hopes to open more than 200 U.S. stores.

Olly Shoes uses an "OllyScan," which is built into the floor of a toy train. When kids step onto the glass plate that covers the unit, the scanner photographs and measures the length and width of the feet, the article said. The information goes into the "OllyFit" database, which superimposes the image on all the shoes in stock and suggests which ones might fit the best.

"Olly is grasping the tech side to make a statement," said Jim Montiegel, a footwear consultant, in the article. "It's an expensive statement. But the jury in this country is out as to whether this strategy will work."

Other general shoe stores have been testing the scanning technology. Since November, Walking Co. stores have featured the "Sole-R" system, which uses sensors to detect pressure points on the bottom of the foot. In a kiosk, customers stand on a pad hooked up to a computer. Based on the reading, the store recommends a type of shoe or a customized insole.

Red Wing Shoe Co. has begun testing a technology that uses light beams and digital imaging to capture in three dimensions the shape and size of a foot and then match it to a shoe measurement.

Stride Rite, the children's footwear market leader, and Rockport said they abandoned technologies similar to Olly's because they were unreliable, the article said.