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Homegrown Success Story: An Insider’s Look at the History of Payless Shoes It goes without saying that the Payless Shoes name has been one of Topeka’s greatest business success stories, and proof that the future’s biggest opportunities for this community may just come from any of the thousands of small businesses that are already here. More than 50 years after its founding, Payless serves millions of customers in more than 4,500 stores throughout all 50 U.S. states, plus Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. How did Payless get its start in Topeka, and how did it grow to become one of the world’s greatest retail giants? For those answers, TKbiz turned to Max Bennett, a surviving executive of the original company – who rose from being a credit manager in the company’s earliest retail venture to Vice President of Administration and Assistant Treasurer. It all started with a teenage boy in Poland, whose family had been killed in Auschwitz when the Germans took over Poland. Louis Pozez was brought to Topeka by his uncle, and raised as part of the family which included his younger cousin Shaol. Though they were different in many ways, the two became close and decided to go into business with each other as they got older. Their first venture was a department store, Poseys, at 626 S. Kansas. It is here that, in 1955, Max Bennett applied for and was hired to be credit manager. Bennett recalls that the Pozez cousins wanted to bring Shaol’s brother-in-law to Kansas so they looked for an opportunity to give him something to do. They borrowed $500 and bought a bunch of shoes, leased a building in the Highland Crest Shopping Center at 29th and Adams, and hired the brother-in-law to serve as store manager. “They got some tables and threw some shoes on them, as most shoe stores did in those days,” Bennett says. “The business started off real well and so they thought maybe they should try another one. They went over to 6th and Taylor, rented an old Safeway grocery store with 4,000 square feet, and started the second one.” Bennett refers to this store as one of the first “shoe superstores” with over 10,000 pairs on open display – and it did better than the first one. Louis and Shaol got the idea that shoes were more profitable than their other stores, and so the other businesses were sold off and they championed the shoe business. The company began under the name Volume Distributors, and each store bore the name Payless Shoes. Bennett was moved from the department store to the first corporate office at 115 W. Crane. The company experienced its first boon times in the early 1960s after the company went public in 1962 to raise capital for expansion. By the mid-60s, they had grown to around 100 stores. The company’s second growth spurt occurred in the early 1980s after it was acquired by May Department Stores in 1979. “May Department Stores had deep pockets and bought them to diversify and grow, so we had unlimited money to open stores,” Bennett says with a smile. “It was a lot of fun. We were low-key but at the same time aggressive in what we wanted to do.” By the time Bennett retired in 1988, Payless Shoes had grown to over 5,000 stores. Louis and Shaol were both very hands-on managers of the business, Bennett recalls. Shaol had a very outgoing personality – a real “go-go individual.” He did most of the buying and scouting out new locations. Louis, on the other hand, was a quiet intellectual who could “do figures in his head faster than anyone I had ever seen.” “For the business to succeed, it took a combination of those two to make it work,” Bennett says. “One was conservative and the other was gung-ho. One took risks and one tightened the reins.” Louis and Shaol both retired within 2-3 years after the acquisition by May Department Stores. Louis died in 2008 at age 86, while Shaol died in 1999 at 74. TK |
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