Fast Break : Vans Unmatched in Quickly Filling Orders for Custom Shoes

When it comes to colors, few shoemakers can rival Vans. The company’s canvas sneakers are sold in more than 30 different shades and prints, from red checkerboard to little green fish swimming through a sea of black-and-white swirls.

But when a retailer recently placed a large order for sneakers in bright purple, green and orange, Vans didn’t have them. But the shoe manufacturer promised that it could make them--fast.

And therein lies the Vans secret.

“There’s no shoe company that can respond as quickly,” boasted company President Richard Leeuwenburg, sinking back onto a couch while pointing the waffle soles of his light-colored Vans sneakers at a visitor.

As it turned out, the retailer had uncovered a fashion trend that had eluded the rest of the shoe industry. The purple, green and orange shoes are expected to be so popular with the back-to-school crowd that Vans is featuring them in its billboard ads.

Vans, founded in 1966 as the Van Doren Rubber Co., rose to dizzying success in the wake of the 1982 movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Actor Sean Penn wore a pair of checkerboard Vans in the film, sparking a wave of teen-age copycats who snatched up every pair they could find.

Hoping to cash in on its hit product, Van Doren Rubber expanded quickly by building new stores--too quickly, as it turned out. When the fad died out, sales plummeted and the company suddenly was stuck with the big debt incurred during its expansion. By 1984, the company had filed for protection from creditors in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. But it didn’t stay there long.

The company emerged a year later and was sold to a Menlo Park venture capital firm, McCown De Leeuw & Co. Leeuwenburg (the similarity between his name and the venture capital firm’s is only coincidental) took over the company and has embarked on a strategy of expansion beyond Southern California. The 48-year-old executive said the East Coast and foreign markets are ripe for expansion.

He said the shoes are especially popular in Mexico and Europe. Sales in Mexico would have been even better, Leeuwenburg said, except for a counterfeit ring that flooded the Mexican market with cheaply made knockoffs of Vans shoes. The counterfeit ring was broken up by Mexican authorities, but not before the company lost an estimated $4 million in profits in 1989.

Hoping that the counterfeiting problem is behind it, Leeuwenburg predicts a strong year for the shoemaker. At least one industry observer agrees.

“That whole fashion-active look . . . is one of the biggest-growing categories,” said Dick Silverman, editor of the 30,000-circulation Footwear News, a New York-based trade publication. “That market overall is in good shape.”

The key to the company’s success, Leeuwenburg said, is the ability of the 1,500-employee manufacturing plant to handle special orders as well as the company’s stock. The flexibility also allows the company to quickly adopt new fabrics or colors into its lines so that it can stay on the cutting edge of fashion.

A quarter of the 75,000 pairs of shoes that the company manufactures this year will be custom-ordered. Customers can select shoes in different colors and shades from the company’s catalogue, and retailers can place special orders for large volumes. Custom shoes cost $2 to $5 more than the usual $30 price tag.

The company’s most popular model, a lace-up sneaker, has not changed in design since its introduction in 1966. But by constantly adding new colors of canvas or stripes, the look can be simply updated, he said.

Leeuwenburg acknowledges that Vans is a bit player in an industry dominated by the likes of Nike and Reebok. The company holds less than 10% of the sport shoe market and has its highest profile in Southern California, where it has 59 company-owned retail stores. Its shoes are also sold by some large retail chains such as the Foot Locker.

Vans had sales of about $70 million for its fiscal year ended in May. The privately held company does not disclose its profits.

The company focuses its marketing efforts on its core customer group: males ages 9 to 19. It markets its shoes as a unique alternative to regular sport shoes.

“The product itself is fun,” he said.