12 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October 1, 1920. 



Making Rubber Heels for a Hundred Million People 



£xplainin<: Interesting Developments That Have Increased Demand and Discussing Modern Production Prob- 

 lems That Confront Manufacturers of Rubber Heels 



By Chester C. Burnham 



rE DEMAND for rubber heels is increasing by leaps and bounds. 

 If you doubt the correctness of this statement, a survey of 

 the prominent shoe windows in your city will oflfer partial 

 proof of its veracity and a visit to several shoe repair shops will 

 complete your education. For further proof, a letter to any well- 

 known shoe manufacturer should establish the fact that a vast 

 number of shoe retailers now insist on complete lines with rubber 

 heels as original equipment, and also the further fact that a 

 rubber-heeled line will very often outsell its leather-heeled du- 

 plicate. It is easy to understand that with rubber heels furnished 

 as a matter of original equipment the resale proposition is doubly 

 easy and when it comes to replacing these worn down heels, it is 

 usual for the customer to ask for the same kind of heels. A 

 careful observer will note that a man or woman rarely enters a 

 cobbler's shop to have rubber heels applied, without a definite 

 idea of just what kind of a heel they prefer. It's a matter of 

 education and the first lesson was given when they bought the 

 shoes with the rubber heels attached. 



With all this proof available there are some rubber manufac- 

 turers who have spent considerable money in trying to put a rub- 

 ber heel on the market and have finally given it up as undesirable 

 or unprofitable business. Undoubtedly there are good and logical 

 reasons for their failure to put their plans across, but the fact 

 remains that there is still a shortage of rubber heels as will be 

 shown by the figures herein. 



Rubber heels have been more readily accepted than were rubber 

 soles, but their introduction and increased sale has not been a 

 bed of roses for the persistent sales and advertising managers 

 who have believed they were right and have forged ahead. 

 Twenty years ago, the rubber heel enjoyed only a limited demand. 

 Only a very few manufacturers of walking boots and women's 

 house shoes ventured to offer rubber heels attached to their reg- 

 ular lines. More often the purchaser was obliged to have them 

 applied as an "extra" and very often indeed the customer decided 

 to wear down the leather heels before having rubber heels at- 

 tached. Perhaps it was a spirit of thrift that prompted this 

 course, but certainly very few persons were then impressed with 

 the comfort and ease to be had with rubber-shod heels. Of course 

 there were not miles of concrete sidewalks and yards of hardwood 

 floors to walk upon in those days. The dirt sidewalks and car- 

 peted floors did not seem to require heels protected with rubber. 

 Here and there one would encounter an ardent admirer of rubber 

 heels but it was the exception and not the rule. The change in 

 living conditions and environments certainly played an important 

 part in the changed demands for rubber heels, and with mosaic 

 floors in public buildings, hardwood floors in homes, concrete 

 sidewalks and a general use of composition and stone floorings 

 in all newer buildings, the public began to incline more favorably 

 toward the idea of cushioning its heels with rubber. Those who 

 disliked that "creepy" feeling which rubber heels gave, were later 

 inclined to overrule this objection when the matter of greater 

 comfort was concerned. Those who were afraid of slipping on 

 rubber heels, found that this idea was largely bugaboo and that 

 the greater comfort of rubber heels warranted their wearing them 

 and exercising greater care where there seemed any likelihood 

 of slipping. 



POINTS OF DISTINCTION IN RUBBER HEELS 



I have said that some manufacturers tried to manufacture rub- 

 ber heels and gave it up as unprofitable and I believe that in 

 some of these cases the unprofitable venture was due to the fact 



that they manufactured rubber heels without a strong dominating 

 feature to recommend them to the public. Not all people look 

 for the same qualities in clothes. Some demand style at the 

 expense of wear, others expect silk linings even if the cloth itself 

 is low grade. So it is with rubber heels ; no one heel seems to 

 carry all the honor points, but each successfully marketed one 

 has definite points of merit which are the fundamental points upon 

 which a large business has been established. To illustrate my 

 point more clearly let me call your attention to the illustrations 

 herewith. Fig. 4 shows the common or "garden" variety of 

 rubber heel, manufactured in large quantities, sold without brand 

 or guarantee, made out of an almost unlimited variety of com- 

 pounds and varying in wearing qualities from good to very poor. 

 Heels of this type are often found on cheaper shoes, in fact, the 

 quality of this heel usually lines up pretty well with the quality 

 of the shoe to which it is applied. There is no reason why a heel 

 of this shape and appearance may not be made to wear and be as 

 good as the best, but somehow the lack of a brand or maker's 

 name seems to invite adulteration and inferior compounds. 

 Among the illustrations you will note many familiar heels and 

 you will also note that each heel has had a definite reason for its 

 success. That is a strong point to be considered in the further 

 development of the rubber heel business. It is not enough to 

 merely decide that you can produce a few thousand rubber heels 

 per day and start in using any old compound or any old molds 

 available. On the other hand it is fairly certain that a good heel, 

 properly exploited, can build up a profitable business in a remark- 

 ably short time. 



RUBBER HEEL PRODUCTION TODAY 



No definite figures are available regarding the present-day rub- 

 ber heel production, but it is a known fact that there are several 

 manufacturers who are producing somewhere near 100,000 pairs 

 of heels daily, several others who have reached a production of 

 around 50,000 pairs daily and a dozen more who can easily rate 

 their output at from 5.000 to 15,000 pairs per day. In addition , 

 there are many specialty manufacturers who have steady but 

 somewhat limited outputs. With all this production in mind, I 

 do not believe I would be overestimating the combined production 

 if I ^et the figure at around 500,000 pairs per day. 



For the sake of comparison, let us consider these figures along 

 with the shoe production figures. The latest directory of shoe 

 manufacturers records approximately 1.000 shoe maiuifacturers 

 in this country and sets their daily output at around 2,059,400 

 pairs. It is entirely fair to discount these figures considerably 

 when estimating on a yearly basis, because it is a known fact 

 that the shoe trade is not regularly employed at capacity output 

 for more than 200 working days in the year. Using this as a 

 basis, we find that there is a tidy little total of 411,880.000 pairs 

 of shoes produced each year of which a large percentage might 

 well carry a pair of rubber heels as original equipment and re- 

 quire another pair or two for replacements. Thus we perceive 

 that our rubber heel production, large though it may appear to 

 be, would equip about 25 per cent of the manufactured shoes if 

 the factories produced rubber heels 200 days per year. These 

 figures do not include the demands of the repair trade. Possibly 

 these figures may present the matter in the most glowing fashion, 

 but the comparisons throughout are fairly relative. 



.^s we have intimated in the foregoing, the greatest demand for 

 rubber heels of the early type was for women's, house shoes. 

 There are several trademarked lines of footwear now on the mar- 

 ket that owe much of their present-day popularity to the foresight 



