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It also remains really hot among teens with money to spend. in terms of sales, representing roughly one-third of the market, ahead of Adidas, with 11% of the market, and Under Armour. The brands that win are the ones that embrace their customers' individuality and deliver products with the perfect fit." Shoring up the top spotīeyond educating its customers on sizing, and hopefully helping more people avoid injuries from wearing the wrong size shoe, this technology could also be a financial boon for Nike, with its dominant position in the sneaker industry.Īccording to NPD Group sports analyst Matt Powell, Nike is the No.
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"They dialogue with customers, hear their pain points, and more often than not discover there's no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
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"The brands gaining favor with consumers today are ones who know how to relate," said Raj Nijjer, vice president of marketing at Yotpo. It has a "fit finder" tool on its website for shoppers to answer questions and then receive personalized bra recommendations. Outside of shoes, bra-maker ThirdLove has embraced the idea of creating the perfect fit for women. Then, a shopper can pick the two shoes that fit the left and right foot best, even if they're different quarter sizes. Then, there are a handful of up-start sneaker makers that have been looking for ways to solve this problem, too.Ī Brooklyn-based company called Atoms, which sells its shoes to people only through invitations, has designed its sneakers in quarter sizes and will send customers three pairs at once. "We still use it today, but it really is the thing that just destroyed fit." "It was all well-intentioned, and it all had a good purpose," said Bill Tippit, a senior engineering director at Nike, about the Brannock. You know, that (horribly uncomfortable) silver, metal tray that you slide your foot into, moving around little bars, to find your shoe size? That same Brannock is still found in Macy's shoe departments, Foot Lockers and DSWs across the country today. That was an attempt by Charles Brannock to perfect the barleycorn method, adding a width measurement. And so 21 barleycorns became equivalent to a size 7 shoe, for example.įast forward to 1925, and the Brannock Device was made. The legend goes he declared three barleycorns, or grains of barley, were equal to an inch. And when they didn't fit, he grew angry and decided to make some standard system of measurement, because there was none. It's somewhat of an urban legend that the reigning king of England in 1334 wanted a pair of shoes custom made for him. The shoe sizing system is archaic, dating to the 1330s. With a market cap of roughly $130 billion, Nike has watched its shares climb nearly 22% over the past 12 months, outpacing the S&P 500 Retail ETF's ( XRT's) decline of 1.5%.īut numerical sizing can still be imprecise - and is incredible outdated. And it said direct-to-consumer revenue ended the year representing roughly 30% of total Nike brand sales, up from 28% in the prior year. Nike said its direct sales in 2018 were up 12%, thanks to strong e-commerce growth and the opening of new stores. And so Nike is opening new stores, like its House of Innovation in New York and Nike Live in Los Angeles, designed specifically for those markets and selling items visitors can't find anywhere else. Nike Fit is part of Nike's bigger push to sell more products directly to consumers through its own shops, website and mobile app, relying less on wholesale partners than it has in the past.
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The service will roll out to Europe in August, moving to other international markets soon after. Nike Fit will scan customers' feet and determine the correct size. The company will launch Nike Fit, a service being added in North America this July to its mobile app and in stores. No matter how good the shoe is, if the foot doesn't fit well within the shoe, you're not going to get peak performance from it." "We reached a point of realizing this was not just the biggest problem but biggest transformational opportunity that we have. "Fit is such a big friction point for our customers," said Michael Martin, Nike's global head of digital products.
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