Horseman Shoes outdoors first showroom in Accra

Come Friday, April 4, Horseman Shoes will outdoor the first of many planned showrooms and retail outlets at Kokomlemle in Accra where members of the public could go to examine the handiwork of the in vogue Ghanaian shoemaker.

Horseman Shoes  CEO, Tonyi Senaya believes the Showroom addition to his business is long overdue, for many are those who have found the quality of shoes recently endorsed by no mean a person than President John Mahama to be too good to be true.

“We have samples on display on our website but since the President’ endorsement, we are inundated with requests and most of them ask to see samples of the shoes before placing orders,” he told Graphic Online in an interview.

Establishing the showroom/retail outlet will therefore afford the public the avenue to examine the products, and it also means that Horseman Shoes is shifting focus from the request-based orders it has operated for the past four years, to a mass production era where customers could also walk in to buy a shoe or two.

The new showroom will be located next to the ProCredit Ghana branch at Kokomlemle.

According to Tonyi Senaya, while the outlook for business is good as per a growing market, there is more to do to establish a shoe and leather industry in Ghana.

“No, at the moment we don’t have an industry yet. It is largely undefined as everyone does whatever suits him, and we cannot even talk about local competition as our capacity relative to foreign brands, is very, very small.”

He said another challenge resulting from the unmitigated environment is the virtual field day enjoyed by leather importers who change their prices at will.

“I think President Mahama’s endorsement goes beyond Horseman Shoes. In Kumasi for instance which is the hub of shoe manufacturing in Ghana, many young men have been encouraged by the endorsement, but the critical thing is how we build an industry from here. Horseman shoes imports leather from Italy so you can imagine if we have local leather producers and how much they would impact on the national economy. Government can start by waiving import duties on machinery to encourage investors to set up a proper leather industry,” he said.