The siblings behind Kunitz Shoes say they've cracked the code on indie shoe retail as they prepare to add a third location in Capilano Mall in the spring.
"(The stores) all share a commonality," said Everett Kunitz, who co-owns the business with his sister Morgan Kunitz. "They're nestled within the terminus of a commute, or close to the end or beginning of a commute, within mature neighbourhoods that foster the types of customers and folks that like to buy shoes that they use."
The Kunitzes told Taproot they have had their eye on Capilano for a couple of years, as it's close to Sherwood Park, where lots of Kunitz customers live. The new store will join Kunitz West at 10046 167 Street NW and Kunitz Southside at 837 Saddleback Road as the family business heads into its 45th year.
Dwayne and Darlene Kunitz opened a Kobbler King shop at Heritage Mall in 1981, renaming it Kunitz Shoes 10 years later. Their children took over in 2018. At that time, the locations were Kunitz Southside and a downtown location at 109 Street and Jasper Avenue. Morgan and Everett moved the downtown store to the west end in 2021. While the departure from downtown stings, the siblings said, they believe they're walking the right path for Kunitz customers.
"For a lot of folks in Edmonton, the 170 Street corridor and the Capilano corridor are major … they're where most folks are headed to get a lot of their pantry needs," Everett said. "We would have loved to continue doing what we were doing on Jasper Avenue, but for some reason, Edmontonians love to drive up and shop."
That's not the experience they could offer downtown, Everett said. "The reality is, (when) every second phone call you're getting is 'Where is there free parking in front of your store on Jasper Avenue and 109 Street,' it wears you down."
Parking aside, the downtown shop also stood in the way of consistency, even though it was profitable, Morgan said.
"What we learned is that you can't compromise," she said. "If people know one store, you have to have everything at the other store … We can't just be like, 'Oh, let's have a little boutique store downtown.' That's just not the model we work on and not what our customers expect from us."
Everett Kunitz and Morgan Kunitz, the second-generation owners of Kunitz Shoes. (Supplied)
Accordingly, the Capilano store will stock the same amount of inventory as the others. Morgan said Kunitz stock costs the siblings their retirement savings to replenish — twice each year — but they sell 90% of what they order each season.
Kunitz Southside and the forthcoming Capilano store are both around 5,000 square feet in size. The west-end shop is a bit bigger, at 6,200 square feet, which includes space for warehouse and e-commerce operations. E-commerce became more important for Kunitz during the pandemic, the siblings said, and now, 60% of e-commerce customers live in Edmonton.
In-person retail goes hand-in-hand with online sales, Morgan added. "(Our customers) want someone to hold accountable," she said. "They want to know you're going to pick up the phone — so many global retailers are so far away from that. Although it's quaint, it's actually very sustainable for us. The knowledge that we'll be there for them when they need it is still really valuable to people in our market."
Kunitz Shoes offers repairs for its products, including top sellers like Birkenstock and its own private label. The Kunitz Collection is made by family-owned businesses in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, Morgan said, and the siblings have named many of the styles after neighbourhoods in Edmonton.
Shoe manufacturing is complex and not something Canada has a significant workforce in, Everett said. And while private-label shoes such as the hightop sneakers featuring Lance Cardinal's Turtle Island Oilers design are not made locally, they still showcase what makes Kunitz an Edmonton story, Morgan said.
"We are still a local brand," she said. "We work with local artists for customization of prints and finishes and things like that. We try to still tell a local story, but we're just coming at it from a different angle."