Daughter steps back into family business

Footwear is a family affair for Richard, Sally and Nicola Stevens.
Parents Richard and Sally run a wholesale footwear business from Marton, while daughter Nicola sells shoes online for women with wide feet and is about to open a shoe shop in Auckland.
Mr Stevens was brought up in Wanganui and trained as a cobbler.
He moved to Marton in 1969 and since then he and his wife have owned four shoe stores in the Rangitikei town at different times.
He knew how to repair shoes and after a while taught himself to design and make them. He bought a building and started manufacture at Stevens Footwear in Station Rd. At times there was a shop at the front.
Daughter Nicola worked in the factory and shop while she was growing up.
"I used to make shoeboxes for 3c each," she remembers.
She left for university and studied business, working in shoe stores part-time.
Now she is well into a supply chain career in Auckland, but that will change next month when she opens her own shoe store in Henderson.
Her voyage back to footwear began when she got married in 2005 and struggled to find wide enough shoes to wear.
New Zealand people had wider feet than most, which could be due to genetics or to walking in bare feet and jandals. Miss Stevens struggled for years to find shoes wide enough.
"I started thinking there must surely be someone out there making wider footwear," she said.
In 2007 she went with her father to the twice-yearly global WSA Footwear Fair in Las Vegas, in the United States. She found stands showing wider fitting footwear and decided to import and sell the shoes.
Her online business, Twinklefeet, went live with a Zeald website in July 2008 and has been selling about 15 pairs a month. She gets the word out by writing to podiatrists and plus-size clothing stores.
Most times the shoes fit well if women have sent in their foot measurements. And good design could make wide feet look elegant even in stilettos, she said.
Her new store, on Auckland's Great North Road, will be called Shoe Talk, a name her parents also used. It will sell a range of shoes, including men's shoes and wider shoes for women. The official opening is on April 11.
Meanwhile her parents, still in Marton, import shoes and sell them wholesale to stores nationwide. Mr Stevens is also consulted by hospitals about sourcing one-off orthopaedic footwear.