Marketing and sales director Somchai Sisomsangar said sales had fallen slightly or grown by single digits in recent years as demand has risen little and the company has not marketed its products aggressively.

But the school shoe and student product market is set to grow this year as more government funds have been going into the school system as part of the Thai Khem Khaeng stimulus programme.

Nanyang expects the school shoes market to grow by 3-5% to 2.62 billion baht this year. "We will respond to the better market by refreshing our brand and working on aggressive marketing promotions to drive our sales by 10% this year," Mr Somchai said.

"We have also revised our website to make it more chic and cool, and also are using social networking like Facebook to communicate with customers. We will also launch two commercials to spur sales in the coming back-to-school period. We hope sales during the period will be higher than normal times by at least 15%."

As part of its plan, Nanyang hopes to improve the efficiency of trade channels. The firm still focuses on traditional trade outlets, which contribute about 60% of revenue, but will work more with dealers on price setting, he said.

"Price wars in the traditional trade are a big problem that has been happening for a long time. We think it is difficult to resolve but we hope it will be reduced if we can educate dealers," he said, adding that the company had around 100 dealers at present.

Modern-trade store operators, meanwhile, also need educating that Nanyang shoes can be sold year-round for use in farms or in factories, for example, he added.