Footwear sourcing and development

Your footwear, from brief to bulk, with people who know factories.

KicksCo is a hands-on sourcing and development partner for Western brands. We run your line through a factory network in China, Vietnam and Cambodia, with our own development staff on the ground and QC at the critical stages.

Production at one of our partner factories: white and blue sneakers lined up on a green conveyor, with soles and a worker's hands at the edge of the line.
Production at one of our partner factories

What we do

One partner from first brief to shipped bulk.

We take a brand through four stages and stay on the account the whole way. You deal with us. We deal with the factories. Performance, casual and athletic footwear.

  1. Brief

    You tell us what you want to make, who it's for and where the price needs to land. We tell you what is realistic and which factories fit.

  2. Development

    Our development staff in China and Vietnam turn the brief into a buildable product: materials, construction and the details that decide whether a shoe works in production.

  3. Sampling

    We manage sample rounds with the factory and give you clear feedback in both directions, so changes get made once and made correctly.

  4. Bulk production & QC

    We follow your order through bulk production, with QA and QC at the critical stages along the line, so what ships is what you approved.

Development

The technical work that makes a design buildable.

The KicksCo team and our network handle development the way a factory development room does. Your design arrives at production ready to build.

  • Design development
  • Pattern adjustment and pattern opening
  • 3D pattern cutting
  • Last scanning and 3D last process
  • Outsole mold development, from blueprint to mold
  • Sample making and revision

Material library

A large library, kept current.

We keep a large material library, complete with swatches and an extensive selection of sustainable materials. Materials are rotated out and kept updated to match current trends.

Production & QC

Production with QC at the critical stages.

Your order runs at the factory we matched to it. We allocate QA and QC at the critical stages along the production line, so issues are caught where they happen.

Photos show production and QC at some of our partner factories.

Why KicksCo

We've built shoes, not just bought them.

The KicksCo team around a meeting table, reviewing sample shoes and laptops.

Factory heritage

Our founding family owned and ran a successful footwear factory for many years. It made footwear across categories for top-tier brands, from snowboarding boots to sandals, in performance, casual and athletic.

KicksCo still has that factory heritage and direct production experience. It's why we know what good looks like, and why we can match each brand with the right partner factory. Own-factory production is limited to select brands.

At one of our partner factories: a KicksCo team member guiding a machine operator at an industrial sewing machine.

Matched to the right factory

We carefully match your business to the most suitable factory, based on capacity and capability. Our long-standing supplier relationships open doors that are usually closed to smaller brands.

Relationships are built on trust and mutual respect. Pooling our resources and working toward the same goal is what builds lasting relationships, and successful businesses.

On the ground in Asia

Headquarters in Taichung, with development staff in Dongguan and Jinjiang in China and in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We work with factories in China, Vietnam and Cambodia, and we speak English, Mandarin Chinese and conversational Spanish.

Senior people on your account

You get direct answers from senior people who know the work and can make a decision, not a ticket number.

Who we suit

DTC and heritage or casual footwear brands that need a hands-on partner, rather than a factory that only answers to large volumes. If you want someone to sit between your team and the factory floor and carry the work, that's what we do.

Experience

Brands our team has worked with

  • Vans
  • Reef
  • Asics
  • Fila
  • Mizuno
  • Uniqlo
  • Nothing New
  • Clarks

All brand names are trademarks of their respective owners and are shown for reference only. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.

Where we are

Close to the factories.

Our team sits where the footwear gets made.

  • Headquarters

    Taichung

    Taiwan

  • Development

    Dongguan

    China

  • Development

    Jinjiang

    China

  • Development

    Ho Chi Minh City

    Vietnam

Our factory network

We source through partner factories in three countries and match each brand to the one that fits its product and volume.

China
Jinjiang, Xiamen and Putian in Fujian
Dongguan in Guangdong
Chengdu in Sichuan
Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh City
Hanoi
Hai Phong
Cambodia
Phnom Penh
Schematic map of the KicksCo factory network Simplified diagram, not to scale. Headquarters in Taichung, Taiwan. Factory regions in China (Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Hai Phong) and Cambodia (Phnom Penh). FujianJinjiang, Xiamen, Putian TaichungHeadquarters, Taiwan DongguanGuangdong, China ChengduSichuan, China Hanoi, Hai PhongVietnam Phnom PenhCambodia Ho Chi Minh CityVietnam HeadquartersFactory region Schematic, not to scale

Our team

The people on your account

  • Portrait of Will Cheng

    Will Cheng

    CEO

  • Portrait of Shefanie Liao

    Shefanie Liao

    Brand Manager

  • Portrait of June Zou

    June Zou

    Business Manager

  • Portrait of Joan Deng

    Joan Deng

    Development Manager

  • Alice Pan

    Material Purchasing

  • Portrait of Kim Liu

    Kim Liu

    Developer

Contact

Start a conversation.

Tell us what you're making and when you'd like to have it.

contact@kickscoltd.com

Will Cheng on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)

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