Centric Software® has announced that fashion and footwear retailer Shoe Palace, has selected Centric PLM™ to drive growth and centralize product development. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, assort, market, sell and replenish fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care products as well as multi-category retail, to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Founded in 1993, Shoe Palace began as a single brick-and-mortar location in San Jose, California. Over the past three decades, the family-owned business has grown into a nationally recognized retailer with over 250 physical locations and a thriving eCommerce platform. Known for its curated product mix, immersive in-store experiences and strong community ties, Shoe Palace is widely recognized as a key player in the footwear and streetwear market.
As the business scaled, particularly in its private label division, the company identified a need to improve visibility, accuracy and communication across its product development workflows. Prior to adopting Centric PLM, design, sourcing and merchandising teams relied on manual ways of working and disconnected tools such as spreadsheets, email chains and folder-based file sharing.
“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.”
The private label team manages every stage of development from initial concept and design to production and final delivery. Without a centralized platform, this end-to-end process was becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage. As the volume of styles and Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) increased, tracking approvals, vendor communication and changes in spec or timeline became a challenge.
To address the challenges, Shoe Palace launched a formal evaluation process to identify a scalable PLM solution. The team prioritized usability, retail expertise, proven results and long-term success. Centric Software stood out based on its robust retail and fashion capabilities, strong reputation in the industry and positive feedback from JD Sports Global – Shoe Palace’s parent company and an existing Centric customer.
Centric PLM will serve as a centralized digital workspace for the Shoe Palace product development team. All data from design specifications to material selections and size measurements will be stored and maintained in a single, real-time, actionable source of truth. Teams and vendors will communicate within the Centric PLM vendor portal, improving accountability and significantly reducing the back-and-forth typically handled via email.
“Having everything visible in one place is huge,” said Tannous. “Centric PLM keeps all the communications together.”
The Shoe Palace team anticipates several key improvements following implementation. Product Development Manager, My Nguyen, emphasized the time savings expected from PLM’s advanced search functionality and the ability to standardize processes such as uploading specs once and reusing them across multiple SKUs.
“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.”
In addition to improved efficiency, the platform will streamline communication with vendors through its integrated messaging tools, task assignments and calendar tracking features. This will reduce errors, missed deadlines and duplicate work across internal and external stakeholders.
“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.”
The implementation process has also reinforced the strength of the partnership between Shoe Palace and Centric Software. Tannous praised the Centric Software team’s organization and alignment from initial demos through onboarding, describing the rollout as well-managed and transparent.
“From the demo sales cycle through the implementation cycle, the Centric team has done a fantastic job being very organized and thorough,” said Tannous. “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.”
Shoe Palace views this digital transformation as more than a system upgrade, it is a strategic investment in agility, operational clarity and sustainable growth. With Centric PLM in place, the company is positioned to respond more effectively to changing consumer demands, expand its private label capabilities and deliver on its brand promise in a fast-paced retail landscape.
“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,” says 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.”
