Footwear Insight

6 • Footwear Insight ~ May/June 2023 footwearinsight.com that high-inventory positions resulted in no missed sales for that store. In either case, you gotta have a plan. "e best thing to do with inventory is to sell it. Address it early, as we all know it won't get better with time," stated Breton. "And you've gotta stick to it. 60 to 90 days equals RTV or discount." It is here that your vendor communication is key, with the one qualifier added… that today's company representatives may not have the authority that they used to. Moving on to the consumer According to Doug Stephens, author of Resurrecting Retail, "we all need the attention of the consumer, and it's getting harder than ever with today's web browsing. Consumers are smart. Retailers need to be smarter. And if you have not noticed, there is a new level of competition for that attention. While many consumers may start their 'search' journey on Amazon, there are now others, You Tube, Instagram, Tik Tok, (to name a few), where they can buy directly off their sites. Yes, Amazon has competition, too." Regarding digital advertisements, what struck me in Stephens' presentation was that 70% of digital advertising is not seen. at's seventy percent. We have all been bombarded with digital messaging, so I'm not surprised by this statistic. How many digital ads have you personally ignored? His point though, was that 9 years ago the cost of customer acquisition through digital advertising was $31 per customer. Today it has reached $350 per customer. is was also confirmed in another recent Wall Street Journal article discussing Warby Parker eyewear, an online retailer who has discovered the value of actual shops, due in part to the rising digital- advertising costs making it more difficult to attract new consumers online. e article notes that "aer the first few months of the pandemic, Americans still wanted to buy a lot of things in person." Which made me think… fitting eyewear and fitting shoes have a great deal in common. Reflecting again on Ravel's comment, "your business is based on your fitting stool…Create that connection." You simply can't do that online. And what do your customers expect? Look at your brand's (read your store's) positioning. According to Stephens, purpose should be the only position. What's Amazon's position? We can sell everything, and we can have it to your door in 1–2 days. Stephens went on, "If your brand is the answer, what is the question? It's the consistency of purpose, and that is the secret of success, where great brands are built over decades" at's certainly a point that Brooks' Jim Weber hit home during his acceptance of NSRA's Vendor of the Year back in November 2022: "Vision without execution is a hallucination." People have choices and that goes for both your customers and your employees. Control what you can control. e conference also gave me a chance to discuss Footwear Insight's annual Gold Medal Service Awards program with both brands and retailers. One of those conversations focused on "returns." What are consumers' expectations today vis a vis online when it comes to a returning items? Are my store's return policies affecting my store's sales? Excellent questions. So we decided to ask exactly that in our Trend Insight Consumer Survey. See their comments on page 42. On my trip to Chicago, I had stopped in at Ahh Comfort Shoes and almost as if on cue, I spotted the below poster on the store's interior window. It sums up the sit and fit experience quite nicely. n Runchella As I entered the Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago for Runchella, the Running Industry's Association fourth annual member summit, I was greeted by many friends, some of whom I just spent time with at the NSRA event in Charlotte. Runchella has a slightly different setup, with more scheduled brand presentations to retailers. The conversations during the morning runs, lunches, and evening reception on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building with a true bird's eye view of the Chicago Skyline, gave us all ample opportunity to catch up on the day's meetings. Some of my conversations at Runchella were similar to those at the NSRA Conference — especially concerns regarding staffing and inventory. ere was a good deal of optimism happening in the running market with lunch chatter like "the stars are aligning for running, and it's going to have a great run over the next 10 years." Others mentioned an older demographic who are now coming into their stores which could require a slight adjustment in the brand assortment as well as a reorientation of how best to engage with them. It's an obvious opportunity to make new connections with advice on different products, running essentials, safety, and yes, sun protection too. Product Data Collaborative (PDC) At Runchella's opening night presentation, RIA Executive Director Terry Schalow announced the upcoming launch of a new RIA member benefit – the Product Data Collaborative (PDC). e PDC will be a democratized, universal database that removes the burden of gathering, formatting, and managing brand product data by providing a centralized repository. Brands provide seasonal product data, and the system standardizes it for retailers to easily create product assortments for upload to POS providers, e-commerce, and digital marketing solutions. e PDC includes hard and so data like model number, SKU, UPC/EAN, color (description and code), size, width, wholesale cost, retail price, MAP, and images. Schalow went on to explain what the PDC is not. It is neither a digital product catalog nor a competitor for any online tools provided LETTER

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