Smith's Sports Shoes - Palmerston North Central

Smith's Sports Shoes now has 14 stores servicing the country from Whangarei to Dunedin. Smith's is one of the largest sports shoe specialists operating within the New Zealand market.

Today Smiths Sports Shoes remain one of New Zealand's most successful sport shoe retailers, the management and staff at Smith's Sports Shoes invite you to come and share the experience of your next sports shoe purchase.  Because of the Smith's Sports Shoes extensive range of shoes and categories, the whole family can be fitted with shoes for most sports and casual wear at affordable prices

Steadily over the last 30 years the Smith’s group has grown and developed into what you see today. The recipe has had some adjustments over time but the philosophy of service, selection and competitive pricing has remained the same.

The team at the Smith’s Sports Shoes stores offer exceptional technical support and service. This includes video gait analysis, which is analyzing the running or walking gait through video allowing our technically trained team members to find the most suitable shoe for each individual customer. This type of specialist support is extremely important today, due mainly to the huge technical advancements made within the athletic footwear industry and the importance of fitting the right shoe for the customer's unique requirements.

The team at Smiths Sports Shoes stores are highly trained and will give expert advice specific to the customer's sporting and leisure requirements.

For over 70 years Smith's has been listening and catering seriously to our customers needs, if its one thing that Smith's knows its that the level of customer care and satisfaction is of the utmost importance hence Smith's commitment to the very highest standards of staff training.

Smiths Sports Shoes is a privately owned New Zealand company established initially as a family shoe store but for the last 35 years selling primarily technical sports footwear.

Since 1949 the retail environment has changed dramatically along Dominion Road. The introduction of shopping malls put pressure on conventional strip shopping. The Smiths brand mix of destination backed with extensive marketing however flourished.

During the late eighties and early nineties branded sports shoes were considered to be relatively expensive in New Zealand and Smith's realised that to grow their business they needed to be able to provide their customers with competitively priced sports footwear

Smiths were however confident that with their strong branding and reputation for offering specialty services a centrally located superstore concept would definitely work well within the Auckland landscape.

Smith's entry into large format retailing did not compromise their principals of providing quality service, selection and competitive prices. Today the Dominion Road store remains a key icon within the expanding group with one of the largest and latest ranges of sporting footwear covering most key sports categories. 

OUR HISTORY 

1949:   Smiths Family Shoes first opened at 344 Dominion Rd, Auckland.  Arthur and Minnie Smith at the helm to service the local families in the area.

1968:   Arthur passed away.  His son Martin and wife Marie took over the business. Martin had been working in the business part time while completing his apprenticeship as a cobbler.

1970:   Saw the first running boom.  Smiths Family shoes were building up a reputation as being one of the best sports shoe stores in Auckland with customers coming from all over to be fitted out in their sports shoes.  Top world brands included  Gola, Olympic, O'Brien's and Laser.

1980:   Chris, Martin’s son, joined the business.

1982:   Fashion shoes were removed from the shelves as Martin and Chris had decided to specialise solely into sports shoes. Family was swapped for sports and Smith's Sports Shoes was incorporated.

1987:  Second store opened up at Lake Rd, Takapuna,  in partnership with Bruce Greenhalgh. This then lead the way to open up further stores in Hamilton and Christchurch.

1990:   With the power of bulk buying and passing on considerable savings to the public running promotions at destinations such as Alexandra Park Raceway drew literally thousands of Auckland consumers to take advantage of prices never before seen in Auckland.

1991:  Smith's Sports Shoes had out grown the original premises at 344 Dominion Rd and relocated to their current site at 193 Dominion Rd. At the time this was seen as a very bold move as the new premises was over 6000 square foot and would be one of the largest sport shoe specialist stores in New Zealand. 

1992: Smiths Sports Shoes established a franchise arm with the intention of offering business opportunities through out New Zealand.       

Mid 1990’s:  Introduction of the Video Gait Analysis System to some of the stores.

1993 - 2000:  Smith's franchised stores opened in Hamilton, Dunedin, Palmerston North, Tauranga and Whangarei, along with a Smith's Company owned store in Christchurch.

2001 - To Today:  Smith's franchised stores opened in Taupo, New Plymouth, Te Rapa, Cambridge, Mt Maunganui, Papamoa and Warkworth.

2008: Smith's Sports Shoes commits to regular television campaigns and promotions and sees instant increase in foot traffic through each of their retail stores.

The past 10 years:  All the same great service and range selection across all or 14 stores remains the same but there has been new introduction of old and new brands back into many if our stores.  Birkenstock, Saucony, Merrell, Hoka, Clarkes, Skechers to name a few.

2021:  Company owned stores are Dominion Rd in Auckland and Christchurch.  Franchise stores are:  Whangarei, Warkworth Te Rapa (The Base), Cambridge, Tauranga, Mt Maunganui, Papamoa, Rotorua, Taupo, New Plymouth, Palmerston North and Dunedin.