New Balance has officially entered into resale with a platform called Reconsidered where customers can purchase and sell previously worn shoes. Customers who sell shoes will receive a voucher that can be used toward a New Balance purchase.
The platform was done in partnership with Archive, a technology company that enables brands to launch and scale resale businesses. According to San Francisco-based Archives LinkedIn profile, The North Face, Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg and Hanna Andersson.
The odd thing is that the New Balance resale site is brand new and yet there are full size runs of popular shoes like the 9060 (above), which is priced at $120 versus the original retail of $149.
Response to the announcement on X has been largely positive though there have been some jokes about Gamestock levels of trade-in-values for shoes.
VF Corp. reported Q3 earnings today in the midst of me attempting to finish up this newsletter, so I shall not linger except to stay this companys long and nighmarish tumble down the staircase continues unabated. It fell short of analyst expectations for literally every metric and revenue was down for all four of its brands. Just terrible!
Decker Outdoor delivered a positively pristine Q3, beating expectations on earnings and revenue while also upping guidance. Brand revenue hit $1.07B for Ugg and $429M for Hoka, numbers that surpassed expectations. The stock today is up around 15% on the news, putting the ticker at a fresh five year high.
The company credited strong DTC sales (up 20%), price hikes, full-priced and international growth and while wholesale (up 9%) was part of the growth story, it was basically described like frosting on an already very delicious cake
On the call, CEO David Powers announced hes retiring, adding that the board has selected Stefano Caroti, chief commercial officer, to take on the roll as company leader. Powers, whose resume includes Converse, Timberland and Gap, joined Decker Outdoor in 2012 and became CEO in June 2016. At the time the stock was priced around $54 and its currently sitting at around $880, which means the stock has jumped 1,500% under Powers very powerful leadership. Talk about going out on high note!
Separate from the earnings, its interesting to think about how much Hokas success has been built on the back of the max-cushioning trend. I remember in 2015 going to the second Running & Fitness Event for Women (a short-lived, sister event to The Running Event) where the brand had a smallish booth. At that time, Hoka had already been acquired by Decker Outdoor for $1.1M, a deal born out of a relationship between former Hoka president, Jim Van Dine, and Decker Outdoor’s then CEO, Angel Martinez, both of whom had previously worked together at Reebok. At the time the brand was sold, it was posting revenue of about $3.3M, and was seen by Van Dine as having the potential to become a $100M brand.
While small in comparison to Brooks and Asics, at the show Hoka was already garnering buzz for its shoes which looked almost comical in comparison to its much svelter peers. I remember going up to the booth and the very nice sales person encouraging me to hold the shoes so I could see how light they were, and I still remember feeling amazing by their featherweight feel, so light that I tossed them in the air a few times.
At the time, the minimalist running trend spurred in part by the 2009 NY Times best seller Born to Run still held sway (Vibrams FiveFingers gloved shoe hit its peak in 2012, in part because it began to face increased vendor competition), so much so that in an interview with Footwear News in 2014, Van Dine spoke about dealing with descriptions of Hokas silhouettes as clown shoes. Attempting to balance the brands innovative midsole with popular trends, he described Hokas production goals as 55 percent oversized or low profile and 45 percent ultrasized shoes.
Nowadays maximum cushioning is the golden ring many brands are chasing though Hoka remains the king of the category. The thing is, the pendulum always swings, especially when spurred by innovation, like, perhaps a foam that provides the same level of support, but doesnt require as much stack to provide the same function. So should the customer grow bored of the look and feel of Hokas ultrasized shoes because she found another shiney toy more compelling, it will be interesting to see how that impacts the brand.
I only say this because theres been a movement in lifestyle footwear away from more substantial court styles like Nikes Air Force 1 to more streamlined silhouettes like Adidas Samba along with retro running silhouettes by Asics and New Balance, so it will be interesting to see if that trend impacts performance run silhouettes.
Based on Hokas quarter that obviously isnt happening anytime soon, but still, its something to consider. People will argue that performance isnt impacted by fashion but thats not true and hasnt been for a long time if ever! And yes, while cushioning has been a legitimate game changer for many, there are are also a bunch of people who dont need that much stack but are embracing the trend mainly because people are just like lemmings.
Skechers USA Inc.s Q4 was choppy at best with the L.A.-based company hitting some of its quarterly numbers versus expectations, while missing guidance across the board. Wholesale, which was down 8% (down 10% domestically and 7% internationally), has been a thorn in Skechers side for all of 2023. Skechers got knocked on its heels by the news, with the stock falling from around $63 to $58. And yet, it remains not to far off from five-year highs.
Skechers posted $1.96M in revenue for the quarter, more than the $1.56M racked up by Decker Outdoor. Deck will no doubt take that because on the earnings call executives got to crow about the power of DTC and the ability to take price hikes, while Skechers was subject to multiple analysts expressing anxiety about wholesale.
Adidas announced last week that its going to sell leftover Yeezy stock after all. If you recall, it pulled the Q423 launch and let it be known it was mulling destroying remaining product. In its latest announcement, the brand stated, Following the latest decision, the 2023 operating profit now only includes a low double-digit million amount of Yeezy-related inventory write-offs. Instead, the company plans to sell the remaining Yeezy product at least at cost in 2024.”
Am I at all suspicious that this announcement came just over 30 days after Ye issued an apology to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions. Nah, not at all!
I talked with Anthony McGuire, editor in chief, of Neustreet, a new platform that tracks and reports on collectible financial trends. You can check out our exchange on Spotify and all other streaming platforms. We talked about my sneaker origin story, the state of the industry, including sneaker media, what brands and trends Im keeping on eye on in the coming year and lots more. McGuire is highly informed about the resale market so Im going to do an interview with him about the space in the weeks ahead.
Vintage is trending among sports fans who, just like fashion lovers, are attracted to the unique appeal of one-off pieces. NY Times (gift link)
Weve identified all five of the ingredients used in the concoction Pat McGrath and her team used to create a porcelain doll makeup look for Maison Margielas Artisinal runway, a presentation that took the fashion community by storm. Snobette
The app for Kiths well-received new loyalty program was among the top 75 on Apples App Store on the day it was launched. The key to its success? Among other factors, customers were especially pleased that the New York-based retailer provided points for all prior purchases as long as they were associated with an email address. X
If you love beauty and selfcare, former In-Style beauty and fashion editor Laura Reilly put together an insanely thorough list for her Substack newsletter detailing her entire 47-step routine from rising in the morning to going to sleep at night and everything in between. Do not click if youre taking some time off from shopping! Magasin
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