Good as new - or better

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WALDOBORO, Maine -- The neighborhood shoe repair shop might seem like a relic from the past and a candidate for extinction, with more Americans planting their feet in throwaway shoes and athletic footwear.

But don't tell that to Bill Wheeler. He entered the business four months ago at age 56, pumping new life into a collection of machines and hand tools that he purchased through EBay from a defunct repair shop.

The opening of Coastal Cobbler, sandwiched between an appliance business and a cell-phone office, means Waldoboro's 5,000 residents no longer have to travel 35 miles to Brunswick or 50 miles to Lewiston for shoe repairs.

It also bucks a decades-long decline in the number of repair shops. While cities still support multiple repair shops, many towns have none.

The number of cobblers has dropped from roughly 100,000 during the Great Depression to about 7,000 today, according to the Shoe Service Institute of America.

And the trend continues.

For every repair shop that opens, two or three are closing their doors, but the rate of attrition appears to be slowing, said Jim McFarland, who serves on the board of SSIA, an industry trade group staffed by volunteers.

"By 2020, unless we see a radical change, there will be around 5,000 or 6,000 shops," said Mr. McFarland, who operates a shop in Lakeland, Fla.

The cause of the decline is plain to see.

Last year's average retail price of a dress shoe — men's, women's and children's — was $32.59, according to the NPD Group Inc., a market research company in Port Washington, N.Y. Dress casual shoes were even cheaper, averaging $30.46 a pair.