I used to work in a shoe repair shop in Northlands and there were quite a few businessmen who would come in and get new soles and heels on their expensive shoes. Also women will come in and replace the cheap plastic heels on their high heels for nice rubber ones as well as replace the soles on their expensive ones as well. Since the soles on womens shoes are so thin they will wear out after 6-12 months and they are back.
Also people would bring in the big soled shoe from Aldo and such places because the glue they used was not good enough to hold the heavy bottom to the cheap upper.
Shoe shines are always a big seller as well. I remember one guy would come in every Friday night with two pairs of shoe to get shined when he went clubbing on the weekends, we would charge him $20 for that and took us maybe 5 minutes.
These things combined with small patch work on hockey gloves, purses, shoes, jackets etc all add up. Very little sales came from merch, mainly the repairs.
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