Popping Candy shoes booms with ‘quirky’ heels and is set to make $1.5 million this year

It was “touch and go” for Gayle Curmi’s business last year. But the venture that started as a side hustle is about to pass an impressive milestone.

Gayle Curmi loves to give people the opportunity to “wear their personality on the feet” and has built a shoe empire that is on track to make $1.5 million in sales this year.

When the 49-year-old fell into a “black hole of Pinterest” eight years ago, she found a pair of shoes that satisfied her obsession with cherries. She discovered a brand called Hot Chocolate Designs that was selling the cherry shoes, but also found there was nowhere to buy them in Australia.

Not long after her shoe business side hustle, called Popping Candy, began in 2013 with 30 pairs from the brand — and she’s since moved into designing her own shoes.

“I did it as side hustle for a couple of years as I was doing shoe parties in the evenings after work and markets on weekend,” she told news.com.au.

“I would describe Popping Candy as quirky and pretty unique and fun. The shoes are very colourful and we like to help people wear their personality on their feet.”

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Gayle Curmi wanted to find fun shoes for adults that weren’t childlike. Picture: Supplied

The bow on these shoes is detachable allowing people to mix and match for their style. Picture: Supplied

At the time, she was running a cake store as a franchisee, alongside her husband. Four years later as the contract was up and sick of spending 15 years working to pay her staff and rent, she decided to go all out on Popping Candy.

“I had a choice to either get a job stacking shelves at the supermarket to get some income for us or try and really push it and make it work, so that’s what I did,” she said.

“I started doing pop up shops with friends who sell fifties rockabilly clothing and I did pop ups once a month around the country. I was travelling between Townsville and Adelaide, all up and down the east coast of Australia. We would just strike out for maybe five or six days in each city, so it was a vicious cycle of setting up trading, packing down and then driving home and doing it few weeks later.”

At the very beginning of the business during its side hustle days she was selling six to 10 pairs a week. Now, she’s sending out 80 to 100 parcels a week with multiple shoes inside and estimates she has now sold 12,000 shoes.

She’s dived into shoe design too with two of her own brands called Sugar Pop and Candy Pop, is now the authorised distributor for Hot Chocolate Design in Australia and also sells a UK brand called Irregular Choice.

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The shoes come in every colour you could imagine. Picture: Supplied

The Candy Pop shoes designed by Mrs Curmi. Picture: Supplied

Mrs Curmi, from Bomaderry on the NSW south coast, said she branched out into her own shoe design initially as Hot Chocolate Design were only offering 10cm heels and customers complained they were too high.

The Sugar Pop brand offers kitten heels with a bow or strap that is removable and interchangeable, while Candy Pop are flats.

“You can take the bow off in a corporate setting and it’s just a heart shaped button for daily wear and then if you want to jazz if up and make it more retro and pop, then you can put something on like a leopard print bow on red shoes to really go out there. It’s a mix and match opportunity so you can curate your look,” she explained.

“With the Candy Pop range, I saw a bit of need for a dressy structured flats for work or a special occasion where you didn’t want to wear a heel. So you can slip on a flat Candy Pop, but they are still quirky and fun with cool patterns. There is a range of metallics, which is great for special occasion wear, and the red metallic called Canvas are the number one seller.”

Most of Popping Candy’s shoes sell between $100 and $150, although the Irregular Choice brand averages around the $200 mark.

All the shoes are also vegan with no leather or animal parts used in the products, Mrs Curmi said.

Inclusivity is also a big part of her ethos as she wants to ensure “everyone can have pretty shoes”, with her upcoming Sugar Pop collection set to offer up to size 14.

Some customers have been obsessed with buying shoes for their collection. Picture: Supplied

Pop up stores were how she kick started the brand off. Picture: Supplied

Bestsellers are the Mary Jane shoes from Hot Chocolate Design, which come in 100 different patterns and designs.

“Because of their comfort factor and ease of use the Mary Janes are pretty much our core offering,” she explained. “They are machine washable and incredibly comfy, you can wear them fresh out of the box all day long without worrying about blisters and having to break them in.”

In particular, the purple and blue butterfly design flies off shelves. “One of the quirkiest things in particular is they are a mismatched shoe,” she said. “Most pairs aren’t matching but more co-ordinating, so they will have butterflies on both shoes but there will be one large butterfly on the toe of one and little butterflies all over the other shoe, so you have to be brave to wear them.”

Hot Chocolate Design’s shoes are so popular, Mrs Curmi has a base of followers who have become “obsessed” collectors, with one of her customers owning 170 pairs.

Mrs Curmi admits she stopped counting at her 50th pair, but estimates she would have a collection of around 300 shoes in total.

“I always found it difficult for me to find shoes that not only fit me but were also fun and quirky and not too childlike. I was really excited when I first found Hot Chocolate Design and found they were a patterned shoe. At the time when I first discovered them, there were only 12 or 15 patterns released worldwide but since then they have been extremely prolific with new designs, so there is something for every mood or any personality,” she said.

“It’s nice to have something that is a bit different and quite a conversation piece. I have a VIP Group on Facebook and someone posted we should be sending a stack of business cards with every single purchase as they are constantly getting stopped and asked where they got those shoes.”

Popping Candy sells accessories as well as shoes. Picture: Supplied

Purple is one of the most popular colours for shoe sales. Picture: Supplied

Popping Candy also sells a range of accessories from socks and stockings, matching handbags for the shoes and handmade acrylic jewellery. Mrs Curmi is also considering introducing quirky accessories like sunglasses and belts to help people co-ordinate their outfits.

In the 2019 financial year, Popping Candy hit the $1 million mark for sales for the first time and this year they are on track to crack $1.5 million, with the growth of online shopping during the pandemic giving the company a substantial boost.

“The ground work of travelling hard and constantly for three years leading up to the pandemic definitely put us in a good place at least, but a lot of new customers discovered us during lockdown. We have been really lucky to not just survive and thrive,” she said.

“But the first few months were pretty touch and go as we were doing a pop up at least once a month or every three weeks and having that constant income ticking over, so to change to just being online that was very scary the first few months. March and April saw a marked decrease, then JobKeeper kicked in and people felt a bit more comfortable and that translated into sales online, so we very lucky and very humbled by the support from clientele and new customers.”

Mrs Curmi has an obsession with the late singer Prince and even designed a pair of shoes called Reign as a tribute to his song Purple Rain, with 1000 pairs sold.

“So that design went crazy. So with the new designs I’m working on a combination of solid and patterns. I like to have something solid on the front so we are not competing with people’s clothing, but with a little pattern in the back that gives it a quirky edge and something a bit different,” she said.

Also on the planning table is the potential for a range of high top casual sneakers as well as platforms as part of the Candy Pop offering.