Agra shoes wears thin on Taiwan foam threat

The Agra shoe industry, which currently holds almost 35 percent share in the total production of leather shoes in the country, is facing a tough challenge from the entry of Taiwanese foam in the footwear manufacture segment as a replacement to leather.

According to sources at the Hing Ki Mandi retail market for footwear in Agra, 70-75 per cent of the demand for leather shoes in the retail market has been replaced by the shoes manufactured using Taiwanese foam, which is currently being marketed as "synthetic leather".

While this fall in the retail demand of leather shoes has made survival tough for small manufacturers relying on domestic sales, even the larger manufacturers have begun to feel the impact now with the foam based shoes establishing a strong hold on the footwear market and new shoe manufacturing companies rising in Delhi, Gujrat and Punjab in competition to the Agra footwear companies.

Yunus Khan, managing partner, Bonno Shoes in Agra said that the Taiwanese foam had entered the market about two years back brand named as "Chinese shoe" and being cheaper, more flexible, wrinkle and spot free, the foam shoes quickly overpowered the leather shoes and currently, the market was dominated by the foam shoes.

He said that the primary reason for the fall in the demand for leather shoes in the retail segment was the high price of leather shoes compared to their foam based siblings.

While the price range for a foam shoe started from as low as Rs 150 for a pair of good looking moccasins, an ordinary pair of leather shoes could begin at prices in the range of Rs 600 for a pair and above, making them appear as a burden on an average middle-class family's budget.

This, along with the fact that a foam shoe needed no polishing and was wrinkle free even after a long time of rough wearing, made the foam shoes emerge as the winners in this competition. According to Khan, good quality leather was available at a premium in Agra and not the shoe manufacturers who were not export-oriented, were now preferring to manufacture foam based shoes instead of selling leather shoes that were constantly losing demand.

He said the cost of foam was almost two third of the same square feet area of leather and the flexibility of foam made the process of cutting, pasting etc. both easy and fast.

Besides, compared to leather shoes, the foam shoes presented no hassles of post-production finishing, increasing the production rate of the factory. Already, he said, about 40 small shoe manufacturing units of Agra had moved over from manufacturing leather shoes to foam based shoes and more were following suit.

But despite the rising demand for foam shoes, most of the over 700 footwear manufacturers in Agra are still preferring to stick on to the production of leather based shoes, indicating that the rise in the demand of foam shoes was temporary and the leather shoes shall again emerge as the leaders.

They claimed that the foam shoes had some inherent problems associated with them like inducing allergy and high perspiration in the feet that made them unfit for the hot and humid Indian environment and the people of the country shall soon realise this fact, again adapting leather shoes as their chosen footwear.