Dubai A unique service that offers to clean, polish, treat and disinfect shoes in Dubai has become the talk of the town – and with good reason.
Called the Shoe Butler, the service which has just relocated to Al Barsha from Jebel Ali offers pick-up and drop-off services, besides providing chairs at key locations across the city.
“People are willing to spend huge sums of money to buy shoes but they take little care of them,” said Yasser Abdul Wahid, the man behind the service.
A sales and marketing professional working in the property sector, he said he often attended high-profile meetings where he noticed the poor state of people’s shoes. When he realised his own shoes also could do with some attention, he decided to look for someone who could clean and treat them. “But I couldn’t find anyone in the UAE. So I launched the service myself.”
Working six days a week – Fridays are closed – the Shoe Butler which has eight staff on its rolls essentially covers the New Dubai area but undertakes deliveries elsewhere too at an additional cost. All customers have to do is to establish contact on the phone or through e-mail and arrange for the pick-up from home or office.
The Shoe Butler staff arrives at an agreed time – between 7 and 11.30am and 6 and 10.30pm – collects the shoes and subjects them to cleaning, skinning, polishing, treatment, dyeing and disinfection as the case may be at Al Barsha. The shoes are delivered back in an all-new state within 24 hours.
Growing clientele
There are many takers for what is perceived to be a convenient service. “We’ve serviced over 400 clients since we received our first e-mail order on January 1, 2012,” said Wahid, who uses Facebook, LinkedIn and some discounted deal websites to market the Shoe Butler.
He said besides the popular pick-up and delivery service, there are many clients who use the chair facility too.
“We have these chairs at hotels and commercial towers like the Crowne Plaza, Radisson Royal and Limitless Tower where clients can sit on the chairs and get their shoes polished.”
Middle East clients, especially women, are shy about sitting on the chair and getting their shoes polished. “They would rather go in for the pick-up and drop-off service. But the chairs are popular among western clients.”
He said customers can work out the cost of the treatment on an auto calculator provided on the Shoe Butler’s website. “On an average, the delivery charges work out to Dh35 for a pair of shoes and the chair charges Dh25.”
He said all products used to clean and treat the shoes are EU-produced (from Poland). The treatment process is highly scientific and is done using an approved fumigation machine at the Al Barsha shop.
“We first clean the shoes using a sponge and then polish them. Every shoe skin is different, so we have to be careful. We treat the skin depending on the damage and disinfect it with special sprays. We then air-seal the shoes in plastic bags and send them back to you in a pretty much dry-cleaned condition.”
The Shoe Butler’s website urges customers to undertake a psychological shoe test to find out what kind of a personality or shoe finery they are. The home page talks of how “a man is a firm handshake, looks you straight in the eye when talking to you and keeps his shoes clean at all times.” The quote is attributed to “God knows who.”
For more details, go to http://www.theshoebutler.com
