Footwear Fitting and Comfort: online course now open for enrollment!
Making shoes that fit comfortably and are correctly suited to their function is critical to the success of your shoe brand. This video course takes you step-by-step through the essential footwear fit development process—indispensable knowledge for all footwear product developers, designers, and brand managers. Learn fit priorities and problem-solving techniques to elevate your brand today.
It has never been easier to get the guidance and instruction you need to design shoes or build your brand from the bottom up – whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out.
This is the foundation course for the entire Shoemakers Academy Program. This course contains the 13 core lessons to get you started fast! Once you complete this course, you will be ready to dig deeper into the business of footwear design and manufacturing.
Photoshop for Shoemakesr: Jan. 2023 Footwear Sustainability Strategies: Jan. 2023 Footwear Import Duty: Jan. 2023 Starting Your Shoe Business Part 1: Jan. 2023 Shoe Types and Constructions: Feb. 2023 How to Design Shoes: Feb. 2023 DIY Shoemaking for Beginners: Mar. 2023 The Footwear Process Development to Production: Apr. 2023 Footwear Development & Factory Communications: May 2023 (*Please note this is an estimated course schedule.)
Level up your footwear design and development skills!
Welcome to the Shoemakers Academy Online Footwear Courses!
“The Shoe Dog” takes you on a 90-second sneak peek into Shoemakers Academy online video footwear courses.
What do the courses look like? Which courses should I start with? What comes with the course? Once I enroll, where do I find my course materials? How long are the courses? Can I skip around the lessons and replay them? Can I watch the course videos on my phone and my laptop?
This short video is an introduction to the Shoemakers Academy website. This video shows you the great educational resources available to shoemakers, shoe designers, and footwear developers. Where do I find the online shoemaking course I want? How do I sign up for the shoemaking course? Where can I buy the shoemaking course textbooks? How do I enroll and purchase a course? After I sign up, how do I find the course and begin watching the lessons?
Welcome to Shoemakers Academy. We are excited to offer a curriculum of online shoemaking courses for individuals or businesses. Level up your shoemaking skills wherever and whenever you want.
It has never been easier to get the guidance and instruction you need to design shoes or build your own brand from the bottom up – whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out.
This is the foundation course for the entire Shoemakers Academy Program. This course contains the 13 core lessons to get you started fast! Once you complete this course, you will be ready to dig deeper into the business of footwear design and manufacturing.
Shoe Types and Constructions: Summer 2023 How to Design Shoes: Summer 2023 DIY Shoemaking for Beginners: Summer 2023 Footwear Sustainability Strategies: Summer 2022 The Footwear Process Development to Production: Fall 2023 Footwear Development & Factory Communications: Fall 2023
You have developed a new shoe design, or your brand is growing, and you are ready to source a new shoe factory to manufacture your brand in China .
So, how do you find and vet a shoe factory across the ocean from your home office? Here’s how to get started.
How to find a shoe factory?
Whether your initial introduction came from a friend, Alibaba, or various search methods (all valid places to start), there are some telling questions to start with when vetting a factory. I recommend getting off WeChat and onto email, where it’s easier to search and organize your conversations and start with the following:
Top 10 questions to ask a prospective shoe factory
What is your Minimum Order Quantity per style and color?
What is your current lead time for production?
Do you own the factory, or are you a trading company?
Do you work with any outside inspection companies? Which ones?
Can we send a local developer for a factory visit? When can they come?
Do you have experience manufacturing the type of shoe we are developing?
How long have you been in operation?
Please provide a reference from a current customer.
How many assembly lines are in your factory?
What other shoe brands do you produce?
Is this a good shoe factory?
From their email reply, you can glean lots of information. For example, how fast did they reply? What is the quality of their English communications? Do you have the money and product demand to reach their order minimums? How long is the lead time? Is it much faster/slower than other factories you have interviewed, and does it seem realistic? Remember, if something seems too good to be true, be wary; there’s a good chance it’s not true.
Shoe Factory or a Footwear Trading Company?
Are you looking for a factory to work with or a Trading Company? (Not sure what the difference is? Check out this article on What is a Trading Company.) If you work directly with the factory, you will have more control over your product, and that’s important if you have a unique design. Question 4, regarding outside inspection, will give you an idea of how open they are to having outside inspectors come to their factory. An outside inspector will perform a professional inspection on all goods and give you the report before you pay the factory for the goods. I always send in an inspection company of my choice and will not work with a factory that doesn’t allow this. Lastly, today’s pandemic climate does not allow foreigners to travel in and out of China. However, if you have someone you know on the ground in China, it is optimal for them to go and check out the operation.
Try to keep your selected vendors to a minimum. Two or three at a time, max. Send them your sample shoe and product specifications and allow them time to ask questions as they make a sample. It could take as long as 60 days for sample production and costing information to arrive back at your office.
If the samples don’t look good, you should be very wary of the attention to quality and detail that the factory will apply to your production.
It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan. Once your brand becomes established and proven to have some success in sales and reorders, it’s time to branch out. If you grow your supply chain properly, you won’t get stuck placing orders with manufacturing partners not meeting your needs.
Shoe production MOQ
A small start-up brand that can barely place orders at minimum quantity does not have much leverage or bargaining power with a manufacturing facility. Established factories are busy, and they want big orders. Starting from scratch with a new brand takes lots of extra work on the factory’s end, and they are not always willing to take on ‘the little guy.’ As a result, your orders may fall to the back of the production schedule and get delayed when a bigger, more established brand needs a rush order. Finding a factory to believe in you, your product, and see the value your business will bring them in the future is not easy.
Do I need a big shoe factory?
Why ask how many assembly lines? The “assembly line” is the standard unit of measurement for a factory. A one-line or two-line factory is a “micro” factory. They can make 2000 pairs per day. You can get good service from a small factory. Is this small factory financially sound?
Does the factory have 20 lines or 50 assembly lines? The “mega” factory may be looking for “space filler” customers. You may find yourself in a huge factory with excellent equipment, but your brand’s support staff may be junior employees in training. It can be a challenge to find a factory that is the right size for your project.
Why do you care if they are making other brands? If you visit a large factory and you see they are making for Nike or Adidas, you can be confident they will have a strict QC process. If, on the other hand, you visit a tiny factory in western China that is making Nike shoes, you can assume you are seeing a counterfeiting operation. You want to be in a factory with quality brands rather than discount brands. The quality requirements of “local” brands and export brands are very different, you are looking for an “export” grade factory.
Professional Footwear Inspections
Do you need more sourcing tips and professional inspection techniques? Check out the book How To Spot Fake Sneakers. It is a step-by-step guide to quality control and professional sneaker inspection. Textbook includes the 50-Point Essential Check List for Professional Footwear Inspection not offered anywhere else.
Can I trust a factory I found on Alibaba?
The answer is maybe. You must be careful. Be on the lookout for danger signs. Here are a few of them: Will the factory send you the paper pattern for your design? If not, run. Will the factory send you the 3D CAD file for your outsole design? If not, run. Will the factory let you know the name of the outsole mold factory or the contact information for the material supply factory? If not, run.
Factory sourcing help
“The Shoe Dog” can help! At the SneakerFactory we have years of experience placing brands with quality factories that are reputable and won’t rip you off. Let us work as your “shoemaking coach” or consultant to help you reach your product sourcing and development goals faster.
Develop a running shoe for South African runners designed by South African runners.
“What is the perfect running shoe for South Africans?” The Pivot & Run shoe would need a firm structure for long-distance running, fatigue-reducing underfoot comfort, and high energy return for long efficient strides.
How to Get your Shoe Brand Started
Meet Roger, Alex, and Grant – the brand builders with the vision to create the perfect running shoe for South African distance runners. But with little knowledge of the actual cost and technicalities of shoemaking, they knew they needed expert help to turn their dream into a reality.
A Running Shoe Shoemaking Coach
Enter Wade, “The Shoe Dog,” and his team at Shoemakers Academy. With their technical and manufacturing experience, they helped the Pivot team organize their product design brief and move forward quickly. Decidedly, their next step was to open their outsole tooling and then directly onto sample production.
In just 18 months, the Pivot & Run Forge V1 Running shoe went from concept to launch – a remarkable feat given the challenging conditions of the Covid pandemic.
“Wade was readily available, easy to talk to, and had problem-solving ideas and answers to help with the tough questions.” -Alex
The product knowledge and research of the Pivot team, combined with the technical and manufacturing experience of Shoemakers Academy and their partners at DMC Sourcing, was the complete package. Working together, Pivot & Run saved countless hours of development time and thousands of dollars worth of trial and error mistakes.
Lockdown to Launch in 18 months
Pivot & Run was able to create innovative new technology to meet their specific product performance goals. The Shoemakers Academy team had strong factory connections in Asia, which helped them refine their design and complete their specialized running outsole tooling without leaving home.
The Pivot & Run Forge V1 Running shoe
When the development samples arrived, the Pivot team hit the road running to perfect their design and launch their brand to retail.
Pivot & Run shoes are now available in the South African market and selling well to runners of all levels.
If you’re looking to start your own shoe brand, the Shoemakers Academy has everything you need to get started on the right foot!
Are you looking to reach your shoe design and brand-building goals faster and with fewer headaches? “The Shoe Dog” can help.
Reach out for some 1-on-1 coaching. “The Shoe Dog” is available to coach you and your team. Our textbooks, online courses, and coaching options will help you build your skills faster and build a better product. If you’re looking to save money by making fewer common development mistakes and go deeper into footwear design, manufacturing, and brand-building, we can help. Check out these online video shoemaking courses taught by an industry professional and developed for all levels of aspiring shoemakers and brand builders.
We love to hear from our shoemaking community. What is your biggest shoemaking challenge? Email us at: TheShoeDog@ShoemakersAcademy.com
When you walk into a modern shoe factory anywhere in the world, you will see the same footwear manufacturing processes. In China, America, Brazil, and Italy the art of shoemaking is the same. You will see that the giant 20,000 shoe city in China and the high-end London handmade shoe shop actually have a lot in common.
All the major shoe companies use the same basic techniques for making modern athletic, fashion, hiking, hunting, or casual shoes. For example, Nike, Adidas, and Reebok all use the same techniques and, in many cases, the same factories.
How many processes does it take to make a shoe?
The answer is hundreds if not thousands! Here are the basic operations: 1. Design the shoe. 2. Develop the shoe. (Make the design into a functional shoe.) 3. Order the shoe materials. 4. Prepare the shoe materials by cutting, printing, and laminating. 5. Sew the materials together. 6. Last the uppers. 7. Assemble the outsoles. 8. Pack the shoes.
Eight easy shoemaking steps! Steps one and two can take over a year. Steps six through eight can take 10 minutes. Let’s learn more.
The first thing you need to make a shoe is called the LAST. The shoe last is a wood, plastic, or metal form that gives the shoe its shape. You would think the last would follow the shape of the human foot…
and it does…sort of. Each shoe style requires its own last to set its shape and size. In addition, every shoe size requires a left last and a right last. So, to make a standard 14 size size-run, you will need at least 28 lasts. If you want to use a modern, high-speed assembly line and make 2,000 pairs of shoes a day, you will need about 700 pairs of lasts!
The shell pattern
Once you select the last for the specific style of shoe you are making, you will need to make a SHELL PATTERN to follow this last. The shell pattern is simply the flat shape that can be stretched over the last into a 3-dimensional shape. This is the shoemaker or patternmaker’s art.
The technical term is “SPRINGING the pattern.” With the shell pattern complete, the designer and pattern master can make the design for the shoe parts.
Once the shoe pattern is designed, the factory will cut the pattern parts for the shoe upper. This is the job of the shoe factory’s cutting department. The factory will use giant cookie cutters, computer-controlled knives, laser, water, or hand cutting to make all the parts. Again, the cutting department must cut each part of the shoe, inside and out, padding, and reinforcements. If a shoe has 20 parts, the factory will need 20 cutting dies x 14 sizes. It is not unusual to have thousands and thousands of cutting dies.
Once all the parts are cut and organized into kits, the stitchers can go to work. This part of the factory is called the stitching department or stitching line. A single stitching line may have 50 to 100 workers depending on the complexity of the shoe. Generally, two stitching lines can support one assembly line. First, the stitchers put together the shoe’s outer shell, inside lining, and tongue parts. The stitchers will also add reinforcements, hardware, lace loops, collar foam, and heel counters. Next, the stitching department will handle the heel and toe forming operations. The final stitching operation is to attach the pattern part that closes the bottom of the finished upper. This is called the Strobel sock. The Strobel stitch is the caterpillar-like stitching that runs along the bottom edge when you look inside a sports shoe.
With the stitching complete, it is time for FINAL ASSEMBLY. This is done on the ASSEMBLY LINE. Not to be confused with the stitching or stock fitting lines. Final assembly is when the shoe upper is joined with the outsole.
Shoe lasting operations
Hand lasting
This first step is called lasting. At this point, this shoe is loose and floppy and is not shaped like a shoe or a human foot. Shoe lasting is the process when you pull this upper over a form (the last) that allows it to stretch and take the shape of a real shoe. The last can be made of wood, plastic, or metal, depending on the kind of shoe you are making and the cementing process. In addition, the upper may be steam heated to aid the lasting process. There are many different ways to last a shoe. (See the articles: Shoe Lasting and Shoe Lasts to learn more.)
Add the shoe outsole
Once you have the upper lasted, it’s time to apply the bottom. This can be done in several ways: contact cement, vulcanizing, nailing, or sewing operations. (See the article: Cold Cement vs. Vulcanized Shoe Construction) In the case of cementing, the lasted upper (with the last still inside) and the outsole units are primed and cemented together. A pressing operation ensures a good bond. Once the last is removed, the shoe is laced up, cleaned, and checked by quality control operators before packing.
Marathoners Dream Shoe Project Hits the Wall (…and breaks through).
The birth of Pivot & Run, a running shoe brand, started with a dream of three runners, Roger, Alex, and Grant, in Capetown, South Africa. The 2020 Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdown were the driving forces behind their decision to launch their brand. The runners’ goal was to design and develop a running shoe that is ideal for South African runners.
Will the Forge V1 be the right shoe to launch their new shoe brand? By the end of their long-run Pivot & Run will have the answer.
Pivot & Run Brand Story
After conducting extensive research and talking to beginner runners and marathoners, the team identified the perfect design concept for their shoe. Their shoe needed a firm structure, fatigue-reducing underfoot comfort, and a high level of energy return to support long-distance running and efficient strides.
The Dream and the Challenge:
Develop a running shoe for South African runners, designed by South African runners.
First, they hit the road. Talking and running with beginner runners and marathoners alike to better understand, “What is the perfect running shoe for South Africans?”
The Marathoners’ Dream Project “Hits the Wall”
Standing in their Capetown running shoe store, Roger, Alex, and Grant closed their eyes and imagined their dream shoe on the wall next to Nike and Adidas. It would work, it would sell, South African runners would love it. They could see the finish line.
Excited about the shoe’s potential, the runners hit a wall when they realized that developing and manufacturing sneakers was beyond their expertise. They searched for answers to their questions on Google, but they were still at a standstill. They had several questions such as “How do we find a factory to make our shoes?”, “How do we know if they are a good factory that can make the high-quality product we are looking for?”, “What if the shoe factory tries to rip us off or steal our idea?” and “How do we communicate with an overseas shoe factory?” They needed help to create their new sole technology, and they needed to find a factory they could trust to make high-quality shoes.
Breaking Through the Wall – How to Get Your Shoe Brand Started
However, their luck changed when they discovered “The Shoe Dog” and Shoemakers Academy, which provided them with the information and expert guidance they needed to get their brand started faster and with fewer headaches. The Shoe Company Start-Up Pro Pack Bundle they purchased contained invaluable information that saved them countless hours of time and frustration. The package included information on shoe design, development, and manufacturing, profit and margin spreadsheets, pros and cons of materials, cost sheets, spec sheets, marketing tips, necessary business forms, duty and tariff rates, communication tips, checklists, professional inspection techniques, and much more.
Finding a Shoemaking Coach
They worked on their shoe design but needed a pro to accurately transfer their ideas on paper. Someone to help them create technical drawings for their midsole technology. Could they afford the technical details they wanted in their shoes? Would their design be profitable? They had very little idea what it was going to cost to make their dream shoe. The friends needed information on footwear cost engineering which they were able to find here (in this online course).
Roger decided that they needed to get there faster – they needed to work closer with a shoe-making coach like “The Shoe Dog” to help with their brand development.
All you need to get your shoe business off the ground.
The complete at-home course teaches you how shoes are made, how to select materials, and how to start your brand.
You learn how to write product briefs, find a shoe designer, raise money, find a factory, import and market your shoes, and much more.
Plus, a real cut-paper pattern and factory outsole blueprint AND 10 more valuable files you cannot get anywhere else (like our profit margin calculator).
Your success starts here! Four softcover textbooks and 4 PDF ebooks, all full-color 8 1/2″ x 11″, with over 1300 color photos.
What raw materials does Nike use to make shoes? Here at the Sneaker Factory, we have examined many Nike shoe styles to find out exactly what is inside. We have sectioned The Air Jordan 1, the Nike Vapor Fly, Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next%, the Air Max 90, Kobe 4, and other popular Nike models to see what is inside. So, what materials will you find inside a Nike shoe?
Nike Shoe Materials
Most Nike shoes use a mix of leather, fabric, foam, and rubber. The Nike classics and deluxe model basketball shoes will have real leather parts. Nike running shoes and modern performance baseball shoes are generally made with lightweight fabric uppers in place of heavier leather.
By weight, rubber is the main component; by volume, foam is the main component.
Does Nike use special shoe materials?
Nike builds their shoes with very high-quality materials, but they are not exactly “special.” Yes, some Nike models, such as the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next%, have unique weaves of upper mesh, but any shoe brand can purchase the Pe-bax™ foam midsole material in the Next%.
Start with an in-depth study of material types available for modern shoemaking. Learn the technical details of material specifications. 195 pages and 300 color photos.
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on sale $39.99
Are shoes made of plastic?
Are Nike shoes made of plastic? The answer is yes. Almost every part of a Nike shoe is plastic. The EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) foam inside Nike shoes is soft, flexible plastic filled with air bubbles. Additionally, the nylon and polyester fabrics in Nike shoes are composed of fine plastic fiber threads woven together. The PU foam inside the Nike shoe is plastic, and even the thread used to hold the shoe together is plastic!
The rubber inside the shoe is a mix of real rubber and “synthetic rubber.” Synthetic rubber is an artificial elastomer synthesized from petroleum byproducts. So yes, the rubber inside a Nike shoe is made of plastic.
Yes, this shoe is made of 100% plastic.
Foam in Nike shoes
Inside every Nike shoe, you will find several foam types. Both open and closed cell foams provide comfort, cushioning, and structure to a shoe. Nike midsoles are made with closed-cell EVA foam, closed-cell PU foam, and closed-cell Pe-Bax foam. Some outsole bottoms of lightweight Nike shoes are made from closed-cell “blown” rubber foam. Nike sneaker footbeds are made from closed-cell EVA foam and “crystalized” PU foam.
This Nike shoes has six different types of foam inside!
Inside the uppers of most Nike shoes, you will find open-cell PU “sponge” foam. The soft collars and plush tongues of Nike running and basketball shoes are nearly all constructed with open-cell PU foam.
