DesignerShoes.com Re-Launches Website of Women's Shoes in Hard-to-Find Sizes

Business Wire, August 22, 2006

BOSTON -- DesignerShoes.com unveiled its radically redesigned new website today, featuring 80,000 style/color combinations in women's hard-to-find sizes. There are 1,300 style/color combinations available in size 12M alone. The redesigned website allows customers to search the entire inventory by size, width, color, heel height and brand; browse styles by Lifestyle Collection and Style; and learn more about the over 50 renowned designers that make footwear for www.DesignerShoes.com customers. The Company offers fun, fashionable women's shoes in sizes department stores don't carry including extra wides from 6 to 15 and mediums from size 10.5 to 15.

"We're delighted to make it even easier for women to discover and buy shoes that fit their feet and their lifestyles," says Barbara Thornton, President and Founder of www.DesignerShoes.com. "Our customers--including lawyers, surgeons, nurses, models, mothers, students and teachers--have clear footwear needs and preferences. They cannot find their sizes in department stores. If they can find their size, the styles and colors available are usually very limited. There's rarely any current fashion, let alone cutting edge styles from new designers available in their sizes. For nine years we've been the most comprehensive source for flats, pumps, sandals, slides and slingbacks in the larger, hard to find sizes that regular shoe stores don't carry."

When www.DesignerShoes.com started in 1997, there was no reliable and comprehensive supply of fashionable shoes for women who leave a larger footprint. By 2000, the shoe industry recognized that about 37% of all women fell into the size categories offered by www.DesignerShoes.com. Even today, over $2.8 billion a year is NOT spent, because there aren't enough larger-size shoes available to supply the potential demand.

Founder Barbara Thornton came to retail and e-commerce with a background in city planning and management consulting. She has a Masters of City Planning from Yale University. After working and raising a family, she returned to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1995.