Shoe Palace Partners with Centric Software to Streamline 250 Stores and eCommerce Growth

Shoe Palace, a leading national retailer in fashion and footwear, has selected Centric Software and its Centric PLM solution to centralize product development and fuel future growth. The move comes as the business scales up its private label division and seeks greater efficiency, communication, and visibility across its fast-moving design, sourcing, and merchandising workflows.

Centric Software is renowned for its enterprise solutions used by global leaders in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home goods, cosmetics, and personal care retailing—helping brands plan, design, develop, source, price, allocate, market, and sell products more strategically.

Shoe Palace’s Growth Story

Founded in 1993 as a single brick-and-mortar shop in San Jose, California, Shoe Palace has expanded over three decades into a retail powerhouse with over 250+ physical locations and a thriving eCommerce platform. The brand is celebrated for its curated product selection, standout in-store experiences, and active community engagement, earning a reputation as a top player in the streetwear and sneaker markets.

As Shoe Palace grew, particularly in its private label business, the complexity and volume of product development increased. But teams were relying on spreadsheets, email chains, and folder-based file sharing, slowing down their response time and making collaboration tough.

“Anytime we needed product information, we had to piece together multiple files, emails and folders,” said David Tannous, SVP of IT at Shoe Palace. “It was inefficient and prone to errors.”

With hundreds of styles and Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) to juggle, tracking approvals, spec changes, and vendor communication became a challenge.

Why Shoe Palace Chose Centric PLM

The Shoe Palace team conducted a formal evaluation to find the right PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solution, prioritizing usability, retail expertise, proven results, and industry reputation. Centric Software stood out, backed by JD Sports Global, Shoe Palace’s parent company, which was already a satisfied Centric customer.

With Centric PLM now in place, Shoe Palace teams have a centralized, real-time digital workspace. Everything from design specifications and material choices to size measurements and tech packs are stored and searchable, eliminating the need to hunt through scattered files.

“Having everything visible in one place is huge,” said Tannous. “Centric PLM keeps all the communications together.”

Product Development Manager My Nguyen highlighted huge time savings ahead, citing PLM’s advanced search tools and ability to standardize processes:

“We currently use spreadsheets to store data, which makes it difficult to search for items if you don’t know exactly where they live,” said Nguyen. “Centric PLM will save us a lot of time with its search capabilities.”

Centric PLM offers integrated vendor communication tools, task assignments, and calendar tracking, helping to reduce errors, missed deadlines, and duplicated effort.

“One of the most beneficial aspects is the chat and interactive capabilities,” Nguyen explained. “We can send reminders, messages and to-do items to our vendors. Tasks are displayed clearly for everyone to see. We also won’t need to take extra steps to upload and send tech packs, size specs and materials.”

Partnership and Rollout Success

Shoe Palace praised Centric Software’s project team for a transparent and well-structured implementation cycle. Tannous noted:

“From the demo sales cycle through the implementation cycle, the Centric team has done a fantastic job being very organized and thorough. It’s beyond just being sold the application. It’s also those first few months, where the project team matches what the sales team was saying.”

Beyond a system upgrade, this digital transformation is a bold move for agility, operational clarity, and long-term growth. With Centric PLM, Shoe Palace expects to meet changing consumer demands, expand private label offerings, and uphold its brand promise in a dynamic retail environment.

“We are thrilled to welcome Shoe Palace to the Centric Software family. The company’s approach to technology demonstrates a strategic move to position Shoe Palace at the forefront of retail innovation,” said Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “Shoe Palace understands the critical role of centralized, efficient product development in today’s competitive marketplace. We look forward to unlocking new levels of growth.”

With Centric PLM now powering its operations, Shoe Palace is well-positioned to continue scaling its private label business, enhance speed to market, and strengthen its reputation as a leading destination for streetwear and sneakers.