Even with more then 50 years at the sharp end of retail, footwear titan Aldo Bensadoun still has huge enthusiasm for visiting his stores, meeting his customers and the constant evolution of his industry.
Many people who work in retail liken it to a rollercoaster. Surge and slump, profits and losses, ups and downs. Soaring success is often followed by perplexing failure in an infuriatingly fickle environment. But for Aldo Bensadoun, the Canadian founder and chairman of the shoe empire that shares his first name, he describes his five decades in retail as something a little more gentle than a rollercoaster. “I look at retail the same way I look at a river,” he smiles. “It flows and moves all the time. It rushes down the mountain and has to find its way around rocks and trees. It’s hard to keep up and we never sit still.”
Now in his mid 80s, Aldo spoke to Emirates Man on a recent visit to his boutique in a cacophonous Dubai Mall. Far from feeling jaded, Aldo embraces the hurly burly of both the shop floor and the retail industry. “Honestly, I love it, I find it gives me energy,” he explains. “You have to constantly evolve because you don’t want to be yesterday’s brand, you want to be today’s brand.”
The Moroccan-born son of a footwear merchant and grandson of a cobbler opened his first outlet in 1972 as a concession in the Canadian department store Le Chateau. Towards the late 1970s Aldo went solo and began to open stand-alone stores, eventually cutting the ribbon on his inaugural US boutique in 1993. Today the Aldo empire has more than 1,600 stores in almost 100 countries and employs 15,000 people.
Anybody who started in retail in the 1970s has seen extraordinary change – not all of it positive. Reflecting on the turning points he’s witnessed, Aldo unsurprisingly cites online shopping as the most significant. Aldo looks around the Dubai Mall boutique and says, “Retail changes with society but the store is the anchor of the brand. It’s the place where you give an experience to the customer and make them feel good.”
Happily posing for photos with shoppers, he laughs, “People call me a shoe dog. I love talking with customers and hearing what they have to say. I love looking at the way they shop, the way they touch the product, the way they interact with the staff. I’m the founder of the company but I still love going into the store, it’s fun.”
As well as online shopping, another crucial shift Aldo identifies in the retail world is the increase in competition. “I think competition makes our work more interesting,” he says. “People have more choice so you want to be the one they choose.” Naturally, competition creates struggle. “It can be very hard, but hard times make us more resilient and determined,” he says. “They also make us wiser and humble.”
Personal Touch
Despite the intense competition and exhausting evolution, Aldo insists on doing business the right way. Renowned for his philanthropy and affable demeanour, Aldo and his son David, who is CEO of the company, are guided in their work by a set of moral guidelines.
“Our values are love, respect and integrity and they do not change,” Aldo states. “Those were the values that helped us grow. Our goal was to make the world better and help less privileged people in society.”
Still present in the company’s Montreal HQ every day, Aldo believes surrounding himself with a strong team is essential. “I remember my mother once saying to me, ‘Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are’,” he says. “It’s the same in business: show me the people you have in your team and I will tell you what kind of company you are.”
Clearly enjoying his time in his Dubai Mall store opposite the blue wall of Dubai Aquarium and its menacing sharks, Aldo grins, “If you want to recharge your battery, you come to Dubai. The vigour in this city is incredible.”
As our time draws to a close, we have one final question. Maintaining your company’s position in a competitive market is one thing, but does having your name above the door turn the screw even more?
He pauses. “No, I don’t feel pressure, but I do feel pride,” says Aldo. “I also feel a duty to make sure the name carries those values and practices them on a daily basis. Of course, you always have fear that it might not work out. So you have to add more wood to the fire and keep it burning.”
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Images & Feature Image: Supplied
