Martina Shoes, four stores in Ecuador and one in Panama in its seven years of existence

Motivated by the confidence that, in her opinion, the success of Guillermo Lasso as president would bring entrepreneurs and businessmen, Francesca Coronel, 27, made an offer last February on social networks that has now gone viral: if the current president won, would open two new stores Martina Shoes. And she says she is very happy to have achieved it.

“I have confidence in the person who is leading our country,” says Coronel and says that after Lasso was elected, he said, along with Adriana Massuh, owner of Anama Shoes – a brand that was previously her competition and with which she joined in 2018 – that it was “time to invest your savings and grow even more.”

Coronel entered the shoe business seven years ago with $ 300 in product to help his parents and solve his studies in Marketing. Her father had been diagnosed in 2014 with colon cancer, which she managed to overcome, and her mother lost her job after spending more than 45 days caring for her husband.

The situation his family was going through forced her to leave her studies in Buenos Aires and make the decision to start with the new Martina sandals, a name she chose because it means warrior, according to Roman mythology.

“When I started I sold at home, on Instagram, in temporary fairs, in markets, then we opened a showroom in Entreríos and two years later I joined my direct competition, which is Anama Shoes, we made a strategic alliance to open points of sale together” , says Coronel with great excitement for his growth.

The Martina are made with a fiber sole, more resistant to water, and synthetic leather.

The promise he made on social media, and which had been criticized by several detractors of Lasso, was fulfilled. Together with Anama they managed to open one more store in the Buena Vista Plaza shopping center in Samborondón in April 2021.

Now it is planned that on November 15th they will open the second store this year in Riocentro El Dorado, where they will have special prices for opening, and on November 17, will open their first physical store in Panama City. It is expected that for Black Friday they will make discounts to past collections in all their stores.

Both brands opened their first store in Riocentro Los Ceibos in Guayaquil in April 2018 and then due to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, they saw the opening of their second store in Riocentro Norte truncated, however, after the most critical months they were able to open it.

“Anama’s star product are heels, Martina’s are sandals, we got together to divide expenses, but more than that, what we were doing was growing together in an incredible way because we shared clients, suppliers, information, advice, support ”, says Coronel, who also opened his first Aunt Patty store this year. , a clothing venture for girls.

Regarding its expansion to Panama, Coronel says that It is something that happened without having looked for it.

“Panama chose us, we have a person who blindly believed in our products, who visited Guayaquil, went to our store and fell in love and for two years has been selling our products purely online,” he says.

Given the great reception, the person who trusted the Ecuadorian brands became one more partner and decided to bet on the physical location in the Panamanian capital, where a Tía Patty store will also open.

“It is a strategy that we want to replicate in other countries, Martina is currently sold in Miami and Nicaragua in boutiques and in Costa Rica, only online. These people also plan to open points of sale at some point, ”says Coronel.

The company says that much of this growth has been possible – paradoxically – thanks to the pandemic, which it considers helped many local brands to become known.

“Our last Christmas was the best Christmas we have ever had”, affirms and adds that “here in Ecuador there is a market of people who leave the country to buy many international products and since the pandemic held them back, they had to buy national products and once they tried it, they kept the local product and realized which is just as good and even better in certain terms ”. (I)