references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . august 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message shoe zone the official shoe zone logo a store in ilfracombe united kingdom formerly called bensonshoe type private industry footwear founded july 21 1917 ; 99 years ago 1917 07 21 in leicester united kingdom founders michael smith christopher smith 1 headquarters humberstone road leicester united kingdom number of locations 533 2014 areas served united kingdom ireland key people anthony smith ceo charles smith coo members 9 2 2016 number of employees 4 100 2014 website www.shoezone.com shoe zone is a footwear retailer in the united kingdom and ireland which sells shoes at low prices . it has over 500 stores in different cities and towns throughout the uk and ireland and over 4 000 employees . the company has an annual turnover of 239 million . the company s headquarters are located on humberstone road in leicester next to the railway . contents 1 history 2 operations 3 references 4 external links history edit a branch of stead & simpson in bradford that has been closed for the westfield bradford development . the company was founded in 1917 under the name bensonshoe . 3 it was acquired by the smith family in 1919 . 3 the company acquired leicester based tylers in 1986 adding a further 61 branches to the business . 3 by 2000 the company had 184 branches and late that year acquired the oliver group plc which added a further 258 stores to its portfolio . 3 on 8 september 2007 shoe zone bought the shoe retailer shoefayre for an undisclosed sum from its parent the co operative group adding 300 stores to shoe zone s portfolio . 3 on 28 november 2009 it bought leicester based stead & simpson and converted many stores to the shoe zone brand . operations edit the company sells approximately 20 million pairs of footwear per year . 4 shoe zone also has a small charity branch known as the shoe zone trust which donates a proportion of the company s profits to cancer research and charitable organisations they also helped children in need raise nearly 200 000 . references edit http www.shoezone.com investors aboutus our story http www.shoezone.com investors aboutus our people a b c d e our history shoe zone http www.shoezone.com investors aboutus what we do external links edit official website media related to shoe zone at wikimedia commons retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title shoe zone & oldid 744481072 categories shoe companies of the united kingdomcompanies based in leicestercompanies established in 1917hidden categories articles lacking reliable references from august 2013all articles lacking reliable referencespages using infobox company with unsupported parameterscommons category without a link on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 15 october 2016 at 14 13 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view