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Crocs Crazy
Denver Nursing Star, Mar 21, 2005
They are everywhere. You see them sold in stores ranging from hunting and fishing stores to state swim meets, and they are selling fast. One of the areas where they seem to be really walking off the shelves is with nurses and other health care professionals.
“Comfort is the big attraction with Crocs,” according to Cheryl Hinkerhouse, owner of the Scrub House in Loveland and also the owner of several pairs of Crocs. “They certainly aren’t good looking – we like to say they’re so ugly they’re cute – a lot of people like them. In fact, most people keep coming back and buying more – and bringing their friends with them.”
Ruth Wright, manager of the Scrub House, agrees with Hinkerhouse. “It’s comfort – they could be ugly or cute, but if they’re not comfortable, people aren’t wearing them – not people who are on their feet for 15 hours at a time.
Hinkerhouse and Wright get comments from people who come into their store all the time when it comes to Crocs. Even though it is the only shoe you can buy at their store, it seems to have no negative effect on sales. According to Hinkerhouse, one of the biggest challenges is just keeping enough shoes in the store for people. There is an ongoing, three-page list of special orders just for Crocs at their store.
“The average Crocs owner has at least three pairs of them,” Hinkerhouse said. “People will come in here and buy a pair they want in the wrong size, just because they don’t want to wait for a special order,” Hinkerhouse said.
The shoes are selling so fast at the Loveland store, that many times Wright said they just sit back and watch customers selling shoes to other customers.
“You feel good when you sell them, because you know you’re selling them something they’ll like – no one returns them,” Hinkerhouse. “We sell an average of 10 pairs a day here – we just can’t keep them in the store.”
So what is it about these shoes that make them different from other shoes nurses have worn in the past? According to Tia Williams, a representative for Crocs Footwear, some reasons could be the fact that they are light, slip-resistant, non-marking, anti-microbial, which means no smell, and easy to clean.
Originally designed for people who spent most of their day on a boat, the shoes have since become the ubiquitous, universal shoe that spans just about every age, culture and style gap one can think of.
“When you see whole families – from little kids to teenage kids to parents and grandparents – wearing the same shoe, it’s really something,” Williams said. “That’s really, really rare.”
Still a very young company, Crocs, which is headquartered in Boulder, had six employees a year ago – today, the company employs 250 people.
When the company first introduced the shoes at a Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in November 2002, 1,000 pairs were sold in one weekend. It was not too long after that that the shoes caught on in other industries, such as nursing and restaurants, according to Williams.
“Nurses were some of the first people to write to us and request a new style with no holes in the top of the shoe,” Williams said. “We quickly added new styles, and now sell a lot of shoes to nurses.”
In keeping with the demand for new styles, the company is coming out with new colors as well as a flip flop style shoe as well.
“It might be a fad, but if they’re comfortable, it doesn’t matter,” Wright said. “I can’t think of anything that has taken off like these.”
“If you have them then you are enthusiastic about them,” Hinkerhouse said. “I don’t take them off until I go to bed – and that’s if I remember to take them off.”
Jason P. Smith