JMA TEX Second-Hand Shoes and Boots, Grading and Export

Company overview, and what the old listing gets wrong

JMA TEX was established in September 1990 and describes its main business plainly: importing second-hand shoes and outlet shoes from Europe, sorting shoes and boots into categories according to what the client asks for, and selling to Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It is a footwear house, not a clothing house, and that focus is the whole point of the entry.

The listing details need a caution. The old entry described this as a Dutch exporter of sorted second-hand textiles in Kerkrade, which does not match the company's own description of itself as a shoe and boot business. The contact number carried in the listing is a Belgian mobile, +32, while the address given is in the Netherlands, and the company's own site is written in French and publishes no address and no telephone number at all — only an email, [email protected], and opening hours of 09:00 to 15:00 Monday to Friday, by appointment. Where the goods physically sit is therefore not established by anything the company publishes. Ask for the address and the VAT number before arranging a visit or a payment.

The grades are the reason to read this entry

Almost every supplier in this directory that sells footwear treats it as a line item: "shoes, graded, in bags". JMA TEX publishes its full ladder, and it is the only house catalogued here that tells you which destination market each grade is cut for.

• Shoes grade A — always in good condition, cream quality, major international brands, fashion conscious, not marked by wear.
• Shoes grade B — satisfactory condition, major international brands, for Africa.
• Shoes grade C — satisfactory condition, major international brands, for Pakistan, annotated "3 ka".
• Boots grade A — good condition, cream quality, major brands, not marked by wear, for Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
• Boots grade B — satisfactory condition, major brands, for Eastern Europe.

Read that list twice. It is not a quality ladder with markets attached as an afterthought; the market is part of the grade definition. Grades B and C are described in identical quality terms — satisfactory condition, major international brands — and separated only by where they go. Whatever distinguishes a B from a C is not a condition standard, it is a specification built for a particular buyer in a particular country.

Boots and shoes are graded separately, and climate is the reason

The split that matters most here is that boots are a separate product with its own A and B, and both go to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. No boot grade is offered for Africa, and no shoe grade is offered for Eastern Europe.

That is climate arithmetic made visible. A container of winter boots landed in an equatorial market is unsellable stock no matter how good the leather, and a European winter market will not absorb a container of summer footwear. It sounds obvious written down, and it is exactly the mistake new buyers make when they order on price rather than on season and latitude. If you are buying footwear for the first time, the useful question to a supplier is not "what grade do you have" but "what do you send to my country, and why that and not the other".

What "cream" means here, and what "3 ka" means

JMA TEX uses cream for its top grade in both shoes and boots, which is the standard term across this trade and lines up with the vocabulary set out in the grade glossary. It is worth remembering how thin that top layer is everywhere: a Birmingham exporter in this catalogue puts cream at about 5% of what it sorts. If a footwear supplier offers you unlimited cream, they are either buying it in or relabelling something else.

The "3 ka" note against shoes grade C is trade shorthand from the South Asian market rather than a European grading term. It does not appear anywhere else in this directory and it will not appear in a European supplier's price list either. Take it as a signal that this house sells into that market directly and knows its conventions — and as a reminder to have any grade name written into the contract with a plain-language description beside it, because a name that means something precise in Karachi may mean nothing in Rotterdam.

What the site does not tell you, and it is a lot

The site is four short pages built on a template, and beyond the grades it publishes very little. There is no bale or bag weight, no minimum order, no price, no volume figure, no container count, no certification and no statement of whether the shoes are paired.

That last one is the significant gap for a footwear buyer. Shoes arriving through collection or store clearance routinely lose their pairing, and an unmated shoe is close to worthless while a matched pair carries full value. Elsewhere in this catalogue a Houston exporter advertises five grades of explicitly paired shoes and a Miami house names a proprietary system that appears to exist for matching. JMA TEX says it sorts into categories on demand but never uses the word paired. Put it in writing before you buy.

Two more questions worth asking. First, what packing is used: the two American houses in this directory pack footwear in 100 lb bags up to 500 lb capsacks and 25 kg shoe bags respectively, and knowing which format arrives determines whether you need a forklift. Second, what the actual origin is: the company says it imports from Europe, which is a continent rather than a source, and European collection streams differ enormously between countries in size profile and brand mix.

How to place this supplier

Read as a whole, this is a small specialist rather than a volume operation: a business trading since 1990, sorting a single product family to order, staffed thinly enough that its opening hours run to 15:00 and visits are by appointment only. That is not a criticism. A house that has sold footwear into three regions for thirty-five years knows things about size curves and seasonal demand that a general wholesale sorter does not, and the published grade list is evidence of it.

It does mean the approach should match. Do not expect a stock list or a website that answers your questions. Write with the destination country, the season you are buying for, the quantity and the packing you can handle, and read the reply against the grade table above. The wider mechanics of how sorting houses build these categories out of incoming material explain why a supplier can offer you a market-specific grade at all.

Frequently asked questions

What does JMA TEX sell?

Second-hand shoes and outlet shoes imported from Europe, sorted into shoe and boot categories to order, sold to Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It is a footwear specialist, not a clothing wholesaler, despite how the older listing described it.

What grades are published?

Shoes grade A cream quality, shoes grade B for Africa, shoes grade C for Pakistan marked "3 ka", boots grade A for Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and boots grade B for Eastern Europe. Each grade names its destination market, which no other entry in this directory does.

Where is the company based?

Not established. The company's own site gives no address and no telephone, only an email and opening hours, and it is written in French. The older listing pairs a Netherlands address with a Belgian mobile number. Ask for the registered address and VAT number directly.

Are the shoes sold in pairs?

The site does not say. It states that shoes and boots are sorted into categories according to client demand but never uses the word paired, so put pairing in writing before ordering. Unpaired footwear is worth a fraction of matched pairs.

What is not published?

Bale and bag weights, minimum order, prices, volumes, container counts and certifications are all absent, as is any detail of which European countries the material is collected in. The entire specification has to be agreed by email.