Rich Bellas is surrounded by a variety of shoe styles available at Van Boven Shoes in Ann Arbor.

Lon Horwedel | Ann Arbor.com

Van Boven Shoes has been around as a business in Ann Arbor since 1933. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s old-fashioned.

In an age when the recession and online shoe retailers like Zappos have eaten into its bottom line, the retailer has introduced a text-messaging option to drum up customer traffic.

Buyers can text “Van Boven Shoes” to a number included in the store’s advertisements and receive coupons on their mobile devices that they can redeem at the store.

“You’ve gotta be a little careful,” store owner Rich Bellas said. “You can’t hit ‘em full-fledge with competitive advertising, that’s not how it works. But there are ways to use social networking for advertising.”

The old storefront in Ann Arbor's Nickels Arcade between State and Maynard streets has seen sales swing back and forth during the year, but Bellas said he’s hopeful things have bottomed out and fourth-quarter sales can climb above last year’s.

To that end, the store is keeping an eye on price points and offering non-shoe products like unique hats, scarves, handbags and socks. It’s also capitalizing on the wellness category of footwear by stocking shoes from FitFlop and Earth.

Bellas, the president of Think Local First of Washtenaw County, said many customers embrace the shoe seller out of a feel-good motivation to avoid excessive shipping and support local brick-and-mortar storefronts.

“The younger generation doesn’t have that loyalty,” he said. “I think it’s hard for them to see the value in that. They’re used to doing things a different way.

“We’ve gotta get used to that, too. We’ve gotta market and promote our stores in a whole different way to a new generation.”

Like a lot of retailers, the store is being more careful to avoid excess inventory.

“We’re a small store square footage-wise,” Bellas said. “We’re not going to be a Nordstrom floor where you have thousands of choices…

“We’re going to have small runs, but hopefully they’re special. No one else is going to have them.”

Contact Sven Gustafson at sventg123@gmail.com, or follow him at twitter.com/sveng.