Footwear Insight

14 • Footwear Insight ~ July 2020 footwearinsight.com interest today in RVing, camping, at-home fitness and family biking. Kent, WA-based outdoor co-op REI, which had doors open for limited in-store shopping and zero-contact curbside pickup by early July, says its road running shoe sales were up 1.5x year-over-year with yoga product purchases (2x) and adult and kids bikes, accessories and bike trainers (4x) posting higher increases. The cooperative also reported higher traffic to its online "Expert Advice" articles in recent months, with double or triple volume for some camping and bike pieces. Meanwhile, Powell says, work footwear sales has performed relatively steady during the pandemic, but he doesn't expect baseball and training footwear "to come back in a strong way" and hiking/trekking footwear "is moving in the right direction but still underwater." Deloitte recently predicted that a second outbreak of the virus this fall, as some epidemiologists are projecting, will slash consumer spending further and might fuel consumer distrust. Already the research firm thinks U.S. consumers are locked into a mindset that has them shifting any discretionary dollars away from "risky" purchases related to entertainment, food services and accommodations to "consumption that can take place in a socially distanced way." In Europe, meanwhile, 30 percent of surveyed consumers told McKinsey that they were reluctant to return to brick-and-mortar stores and gyms for at least four months. There were 15 bankruptcies during the first half of 2020, including five (Aldo, Modell's, Stage Stores, JC Penney and Neiman Marcus) that sell shoes. Coresight Research predicts a total of 20,000 to 25,000 U.S. store closures this year, up from 9,000 in 2019, as more retailers rationalize their fleets and shed underperforming doors, and as many as one-third of the nation's malls face shuttering forever. Powell takes these likely retail developments in the months ahead in stride, suggesting, "It will make us a healthier industry as we come out of this [pandemic]." Surviving brick-and-mortar retailers are faced with new realities that look to continue. Beyond required in-store protections for customers, FOR RETAILERS, CONTACTLESS PAYMENT OPTIONS, CURBSIDE PICKUP AVAILABILITY AND DIGITAL ARE GROWING IN IMPORTANCE. SUMMER LIKE NO OTHER

• Cover