A company from Guadalajara that achieved a commercial success for several decades in Mexico, Latin America and the United States, it was the Canada Shoe Store.
The firm positioned itself as a leader in the industry from 1955 and until the mid-90’s thanks to its founder Salvador Lopez Chaveza man from Jalisco of humble birth with a vision out of his time.
In her research “The consolidation of a company in a regional context in a context of small industries: the case of Calzado Canada, by the researcher of the Department of Organizational Studies of the Los Altos University Center (CUAltos), Patricia Arias; raises his hypothesis of the decline of this company.
How was Zapatería Canada born?
The birth of the company was on July 13, 1940, during those years it was established at 130 Pedro Loza Street, in the heart of Guadalajara.
He went from being a small workshop that employed a dozen people to moving his company to Abascal y Souza on his own land.
In less than ten years, Salvador took over the reins of his father’s small business to prepare it for modernity.
Shoe store Canada positioned itself in the consumer’s taste
The summit of the industry was reached by Canada in the year 1955.
Arias pointed out that this success was possible due to the analysis of López Chávez, who adequately adapted the social changes of the time and took advantage of the resources he had.
“He gave a correct reading of the medium and the moment in which he had to live. The correct reading of the changes made him turn them into opportunities. There was a strong change of customs, from the use of the huarache to the shoe”.
The businessman who studied up to third grade began to use strategies to advertise his product; he hit from decals on polesgave away calendars, matchboxes, key chains and other products.
In the Parque Agua Azul, during the weekend dances, he gave away and raffled off pairs of shoes; she financed radio programs that entertained the dances of the neighborhoods of Guadalajara.
However, his main success was investing a lot of resources in his factory.
Mexicans recognized the shoe as good quality, cheap and fashionable.
Other of his plans was to apply the band production system, which increased productivity; in marketing, since he set up a distribution structure to directly reach the sales routes; opened its own stores, in addition to creating a brand and advertising its product.
“The quality of the shoe, the novelty, the massive dissemination of footwear and technological innovations, allow the number of own and exclusive distributors to gradually increase.”
With ten years of life it already produced between 15 and 17 thousand pairs, with a wide distribution network in the country and until reaching Los Angeles, California, in 1960.
By 1971, the new factory known as Industrial Garden Canada on Dr. R. Michel Avenue.
According to researcher Patricia Arias, in 1978 it employed 8,208 people between workers and employees.
The fall of the emporium and the rescue of another Giant
It was in the eighties when he began to experience problems, the family asked for financial loans when Salvador died.
Despite surviving that decade and continuing with its production of 16,000 pairs per day and boasting more than 200 points of sale; the commercial opening in 1993 represented the last coffin nail from Canada.
The researcher considered that his fall was due to his inability to adapt to the commercial opening that allowed the arrival of cheaper foreign shoes.
Its closure as a brand was consummated when on March 5, 2002 Coppel Group he acquired it.
But many workshops in the center of Guadalajara did not have the same luck, they went bankrupt and one of the most important industries in the country collapsed.
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