A Shoe Pain-Killer Builds a New Business

 A Shoe Pain-Killer Builds a New Business 

   ALBERT SACHS , who had been a retail shoe merchant in Salisbury, Maryland, for many years, long had an idea for another kind of business. He selected the tail-end of the depression as a favorable time to launch this other enterprise. His idea was for a device that would take the “pain” out of shoes. Mr. Sachs had been experimenting for ten years with various methods of breaking in new shoes mechanically. He had always been interested in finding out how he could give his customers more foot comfort. It seemed a pity to him that many people had so much trouble with new shoes. Finally, he developed a system consisting of a set of jacks in which holes had been punched. These jacks were manipulated in the balky shoe until the area of pressure was over a hole. Here the leather was hammered until a depression was created, thus removing the cause of discomfiture to the wearer. These jacks were but the forerunner of Mr. Sachs’s present system. Gradually he evolved a hydraulic press, based on the original principle that he used in Salisbury. A variety of brass forms is a part of the equipment. The machine presses a form into that part of the shoe that is causing the pain. This is done with such great force that the source of the trouble is permanently removed. Mr. Sachs decided that the best way to handle his invention was to lease the machine to operators who would run the business according to the inventor’s specifications. Already there are three SHU-EEZ Comfort Shops in New York City. Though these shops are conducted by lessees, Mr. Sachs gives the closest attention to their supervision. A charge of twenty-five cents is made for breaking in each of a pair of shoes. So popular is the service that dozens of customers drop in his main shop daily to have their shoes made wearable with comfort. It seems that everybody has shoes with pains in them. Early in 1936, a man from England dropped in to have his shoes adjusted. He returned a few months later, on another trip to this country, with an armful of shoes to be broken in by the hydraulic pain eliminator. Mr. Sachs’s novel business is still a very small enterprise. But it is making money, and it holds a brilliant promise for the future. He is more than glad that he did not let the depression scare him from putting his idea to work.