From near closure to ‘hidden gem’: Daughter revives father’s shoe store in London with TikTok; here's how

For 34 years, Rachid Lazraq ran his shoe store in Shoreditch, East London, surviving on selected but loyal customers. However, the family business witnessed tough times, almost at the brink of being shut down. However, it was Lazraq's daughter Zineb Lazraq who took some help from social media and changed the situation after going viral on TikTok.

The story of London's viral shoe store

Zineb Lazraq discovered that although their shoes seemed old-fashioned to him, they could actually be exactly what a younger generation was looking for. She went on to post on the video-sharing platform, and soon the store started buzzing with customers.

The store, Rich Collection Italia, has been running for decades in Shoreditch. As per a report by People, the store was impacted by rising rents, gentrification and the arrival of chains, cafes and newer businesses in the neighbourhood. It is said that with time, many regular customers stopped visiting as frequently.

“When I was younger, the business was doing well, but especially towards my teen years, the business started struggling,” Lazraq told People. “The main reason was the area was changing due to gentrification.”

“The whole street where my dad’s shoe shop is was full of other shoe shops like his,” she said, adding, “There were many shops just like his on that street, but over the years, they all started closing down because the rent prices were really high, so they weren’t able to sustain the business.”

Lazraq shared that while her 59-year-old dad, owns the shop and didn’t want to be driven out by rent prices, he came “very close to closing down.”

"It wasn’t his primary customer base, which were older African customers, a lot of them,” Zineb revealed. “They stopped coming or they just didn’t come as frequently. He thought the business had run its end.”

“Hidden gem”

Amid the uncertainty, the business had a turnaround from an unlikely source-- social media.

In May, a French TikTok user visited the shop, describing it as a “hidden gem”. The video gained more than 300,000 views, promoting the store to an audience on the internet.

The viral video brought attention and customers to the shop. It pushed her to look closely at the shoes her father had been selling for years, something that she had dismissed earlier as “auntie shoes for older ladies”.

How TikTok helped

Turns out, she soon realised that some of them fit perfectly into the Y2K fashion revival popular among the newer generation. “As soon as I found that out, I thought, let me make my own TikTok,” she shared with the portal.

As the daughter began making videos, her strategy quickly gained traction, bringing younger customers to the store.

“Then that blew up, and then the lines started forming after that,” she said. “So I continued making more videos, and very quickly I realized, ‘Oh, this is my new job for now.’”

Soon, customers lined up for hours outside the store to get their hands on the shoes, most of which retail for around $75, reportedly.

“My dad needs a shop assistant to deal with the lines and the demand,” Zineb added. “So with zero retail experience, I went straight into the deep end and was just learning as I go.”

For now, the father-daughter duo is “taking things day by day at the moment,” as said by the 25-year-old.