New Marketing Approach by Hebronite Shoe Makers Inspired by the Cluster Spirit
Not like any other shoe shop in the Hebron city of Palestine, the Hebron Leather & Shoe cluster celebrated the opening of the first shoe shop that offers the domestic consumers Hebron hand-made shoes. This initiative has gathered thirteen competing shoe makers in a domestic business consortium to sell their products to the domestic consumers. It was inspired by the Hebron Leather and Shoe cluster being supported by the Private Sector Development Cluster Project (PSDCP) implemented by Ministry of national Economy in partnership with the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture and funded by the Agence Française De Développement (AFD).
The idea of the showroom emerged in 2014 during the cluster strategy development stage to strengthen the cluster position in the local market. Accordingly, in 2015 a market study has been conducted for the local market which strongly supported the idea of the shop. Later on, in 2016, the showroom was opened to reinforce the theme of complementary benefit, combining different shoe makers to establish one stop-shop for Hebron-made shoes aiming not only for profit but also to build the trust with domestic consumers by offering them a credible and safe shopping experience.
The Leather and Shoe Industry in Hebron has faced a major downfall since late 1990s due to damping the domestic market with low price and
low quality imported shoes causing a decline in the employment in this industry from 30,000 to 4,000 jobs. However, this industry started to recover with the emerging of the Leather & Shoe cluster in2013, through a series of innovative collective initiatives designed to address the key gaps facing this industry. As such, the cluster has established the Leather & Footwear Product Development Centre in full partnership with the public, private and academic sectors. This Centre provides the cluster members with design, intelligence, training and testing services. The latter aims to provide not only a solution for the cluster members to enhance the quality of Hebron-made shoes but also provide a national platform for introducing non-tariff barriers to the imported products which should be tested in accordance with the national technical regulations that have been developed in partnership with the public authorities.
Motivated by the success achieved in the local market and the improvement in the technical issues, the Hebron leather & Shoe cluster recently started to focus on the export markets as one of its key strategic directions. Therefore, with support from PSDCP, the cluster commissioned a mapping for the potential international markets which showed focus on the Gulf and the Scandinavian markets. Accordingly with the engagement of the Palestinian Diaspora, the cluster managed to establish a selling point for the cluster products in Kuwait and is currently concluding a deal with a potential buyer form Sweden, who has developed an online portal to sell Hebron-Made shoes in Europe. The first shipment will take place in July 2016.
The Leather & Shoe Cluster started back in to 2013 with a twenty members and has grown to eighty three members representing the whole value chain of this industry in Hebron aiming to enhance the competiveness of its members. It is considered as one of the five pilot cluster initiatives supported by PSDCP project with funding from Agence Française De Développement (AFD).