Word: shoes
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Consumers were making an adjustment too. Nike's best customers, who are young and male, typically buy 10 to 15 pairs of athletic shoes each year. It's about style, and kids were seeing less of it in Nike and more of it in the so-called brown-shoe category, which broadly describes anything that isn't a dress shoe and isn't an athletic shoe. Says Geoff Hollister, who heads Nike's grass-roots running program: "We were just filling the pipeline. You've got to come up with great stuff all the time. You miss just one season...
...sporting-goods retail consolidation that has claimed hundreds of stores in the U.S. The survivors, including powerful chains like the Sports Authority, complain that every store is selling the same stuff. Nike, as the biggest shoe supplier, with a 47% domestic market share, suffers most...
...brown-shoe phenomenon. Teens and young adults, the core shoe buyers, haven't forsaken their hightops. The new Air Jordan XIIIs are a hit. But kids have extended their shoe buying over a wider range of styles: Vans, Airwalks, Skechers and Lugz for the skateboard dudes and the hip-hop crowd; outdoor brands such as Timberland for everyone. Reebok estimates that 15% to 20% of the sneaker business went brown last year...
...brown-shoe momentum is so significant that some observers wonder whether Nike has lost its relevance to young stylemeisters. "Coolness. That is the issue; that's something that I worry about constantly," notes Faye Landes, an analyst for Salomon Smith Barney. Not Clarke. He calls the shift a predictable phase that will fade, just...
Better competition. Once blessed by rivals who couldn't tie their own shoes without risking injury, Nike faces a resurgent Adidas, whose sales increased 92% in North America in the last quarter. True, Reebok could still screw up a one-man 100-m dash, but it is pumping fresh money into shoe technology and advertising. New Balance expects sales to rise 25% this year, and fashion brands such as Tommy Hilfiger are breaking out sneaker lines...