Payless returns to business

For those who remember the affordable glory days of Payless, the company has officially made a comeback. Payless emerged from bankruptcy in January, and has relaunched with an ecommerce store. It's first brick-and-mortar is set to open in Miami this fall. Miami is also home to the company's new headquarters. The news was reported by Yahoo Finance.

Payless has appointed former CAA-GBG president Jared Margols as their new CEO. Payless' new ecommerce approach will also be supported by franchise efforts in Southeast Asia and the Middle East along with operations in Latin America. Projected revenues for Payless are 700 million dollars. Payless' North American arm is expected to resume pre-bankruptcy level operations by 2025, at which point Margolis is expecting revenues to be in the billions.

In 2019, when Payless filed for a bankruptcy a second time its debts were around 470 million dollars. The restructuring plan put in place after their first bankruptcy in 2017 failed.

At the time of its bankruptcy, Payless had over 4000 stores across the country. After this emergence from bankruptcy the store fleet will be a much tighter 400 to 500.

Price points for Payless shoes will range from 9 dollars and 99 cents to 49 dollars and 99 cents. Although launching during the coronavirus pandemic is tricky, new Payless stores have been designed with social distancing in mind. The company is also taking a more omnichannel approach with touch screen shopping available in stores.