Bata: Building Passion for Shoes

Sara Gogna

Bata: Building Passion for Shoes

One of the things that people aim at buying when they head out for shopping are shoes. In today’s time, the huge collection of shoes that people have, is more than the number of clothes they own! However, just like when one thinks about clothes, the first thing that comes to mind is Forever 21 or Zara, for shoes, it's Bata!

Bata maintains a strong presence throughout India; Source; The Economic Times

Be it a pair of sandals or a nice shiny set of heels, the first thing that comes to the mind of most people in India is Bata. This company has become the perfect one-stop solution for owning a new pair of shoes, just the way you like them.

As it sounds as Indian as it can get, Bata did not originate here. The Bata Corporation originated in the Czech Republic. The interesting thing about this company is that it's not just a footwear manufacturer but also retails apparel and fashion accessories.

Bata was founded in 1894 by Tomas Bat’a, along with his brother and sister, Antonin and Anna. The Bat’a family were cobblers. Hence they founded the company and began running it with only ten full-time weekly wage workers.

There also came a time when consumer responses dropped majorly due to World War I. However, where other companies saw shutting down as their only option, Bata reduced prices and increased their sales as well as their production. Zin, in the Czech Republic, was soon called the Bat’aville. The company covered several hectares of the city as it became larger.

Saving all of its factories all over the world was inevitable due to the world wars hence Bata had to shut down stores in different places. However, concentrating on retailing more than anything else, it now serves around a million customers each day. Bata provides employment to thousands of people, operates more than 5000 shops and is spread across seventy countries on five different continents.

India was introduced to Bata in 1931. Bata’s township in Kolkata is Asia’s largest shoe-maker factory all across. Today, The company has four factories all across the country and maintains a strong presence throughout India as well as at online retail firms.

Every nook and corner, there will always be a Bata logo staring at you, pulling you to it with its full willpower. And no one seems to be able to resist it. That’s the power that this Indian historical brand of shoes has from the beginning and still continues to overpower other brands.

The shoes back then were made from leather however, with the increasing inflation ever since Tomas Bat’a tried his hands at making shoes from canvas. This idea of canvas shoes flourished more than anyone ever expected it to. The increased revenue from these newfound shoes made Bata expand as a company vastly. Soon enough, steam-driven machines were being set up in the hometown of Bata, inspired by the American machines.

The first mass-produced product from these machines was a shoe called Bat’ovky. This was a simple style shoe designed for and worn by the working class for comfort. Bata then expanded further and the first sales agency was opened in Germany in 1909. Bata, was now a company running with more than 1500 full-time workers, a company that made excellent quality shoes as per the comfort of different niches.