It's time for a change

A little bit of history

Since before its birth, while it was just an idea in my head, Zeazoo had always had a mission: 

to provide healthy, comfortable and affordable shoes made of high-quality materials for everyone, with the option of adjusting the size for specific feet.

A goal that we have been pursuing unwaveringly for 14 years now.

At that early times, there were a couple of barefoot brands, and we joined these barefoot pioneers with the passion and hard work without which introducing change in the shoe industry was simply not possible.

I started the company with one sewing textile machine, which I bought on credit, and a simple Wordpress site using a modified version of the default theme with a couple of free plugins. The site was supported by my lovely husband, while I was supporting the customers...all NONE of them at that time :-).

My parents, both experienced in the shoe industry, made the shoes, at first entirely by hand, except for the baby textile slippers, which I sewed with my brand new machine :-). The next investment was in a sewing leather machine, and in the first three years we had a mini production with 5 machines in total, no loans and 5 employees.

This was a pretty solid process for a starting family business, and it allowed us to reduce our expenses to basically paying for the hosting and administrative expenses, apart from materials and salaries (with the first employee). Everyone from the family was contributing :-).

That said, when you are starting a family company, there is a number of "hidden" costs: you have to pay for an accountant, payment processor, trademark, and you have to spend time doing all kinds of crazy stuff for the tax authorities. When there are little to no sales, that can sometimes be a lot. Once you have even one employee, then all the processes become harder and more expensive.

Regardless, my determination was stronger: I took my husband to a walk through the parks in Sofia, where I interviewed mothers with little kids. Being a marketing researcher before that really helped. I had prepared full-blown questionnaires to determine what mothers were looking for in a shoe, what price they were willing to pay, and what were their hidden and unconscious needs.

Our efforts paid off: Zeazoo became a well-established brand in the world barefoot shoes community. Furthermore, Zeazoo still is one of the few that would do everything possible to produce shoes for every type of foot and every taste by customizing the shoes - size adjustments and own designs.

This has allowed many customers who have difficulty finding suitable shoes due to the specifics of their feet to experience relief and joy from wearing shoes.

These customizations and the invisible level of customer care have always been the main strengths of Zeazoo. We would not have been able to do this and get this far without all the people who have worked for Zeazoo, both in our administrative and production departments.

What really goes in these customizations?

Producing a custom made shoe is not an easy feat.

It is a time-consuming process from the very beginning, when we discuss it with the client; through the slow production itself, as it is mostly a manual process; to the subsequent communication with the client. It requires employees who have at least one year of experience with the models, as well as an employees who have high professional experience in shoe construction.

As you might guess, making a custom product also leads to a significantly higher final price of the products; despite we have managed to develop it over the years into an affordable service for everyone.

You know how they say that “a video is worth a thousand words”? Check out our video on how to make custom loafers with an upper extension.

So, why the change?

I can proudly say that a huge part of the mission with which we started, and of which we are part of, is generally accomplished.

Even companies that are highly specialized in traditional footwear have started producing barefoot shoe models. There are now more barefoot shoe companies than there were customers 10 years ago. Within 5 years, we expect to have barefoot shoes in every specialty store.

All kinds of models with different parameters are now available to fit even the most specific feet. Our experience over the past 5 years shows that the need for adjustments in models is gradually disappearing, especially considering the high risk in each adjustment for both the customer and the manufacturer.

Of the three core values ​​in Zeazoo mission to make shoes, which are:

• Healthy, comfortable and barefoot, starting with children
• From natural high-quality materials at affordable prices
• To fit every foot and taste - with customization options

... the latter will be dropped because there is already a huge selection of barefoot shoes for every foot, in all kinds of materials, patterns, colors, and maintaining this service in the current economic situation is no longer reasonable and meaningful for us.

We are only sad that we will not be able to delight our little customers with these beauties here:

So...what is the change?

We will reduce the number of models we offer. It has become clear that people prefer the looks of more conventional shoes. We will be discontinuing our wild cat models: Cheetah, Leo, Tiger because they need a huge amount of handwork. Additionally, we will no longer offer: Mary Jane, Corela, Robin, Ibis, Fox, Pelican and some of the sandal models.

All pairs that we have available will remain listed on the site until they go out of stock.

We will stop manual customizations, which include - different colors, size adjustments and names, letters, different symbols (designs). We will focus on pre-production of series of our best-selling models and colors. This will allow us to maintain consistency of materials, quality and speed of production. In addition to the advantages listed so far for you, the customers, you will have a choice of a selection of well established models with constant parameters.

We will create a special section on our site, where there will be shoes with slight defects at almost :) production prices.

This will streamline our ordering, production, automation and delivery processes, reduce the manual work in the production, so that we can continue delivering the highest quality support in the industry. This will allow us to lower our prices instead of increasing them with the inflation rate. An added benefit will be the shorter delivery period and less wondering among all the options we offered so far.

Okay, what will NOT change?

• The quality and the sustainability of the materials.
• The quality of the support.
• The effort to produce better and more attractive models each year.

Are we still taking custom orders?

We will continue to accept custom orders until May 30, 2025, after which we will begin pre-production of all pairs.

We thank everyone who has trusted us over the years and ordered models from us with size adjustments, customizations, and their own designs.