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T radehome Shoes, a 135-door footwear chain that stretches across the U.S. from Spokane, WA, in the Northwest to Pittsburgh in the East to San Antonio in the Southwest, has discovered a new calling over the last 36 months — catering to performance running shoe customers in some of its key markets. In what may seem to some to be an atypical performance running retail environment, the 102-year-old chain has nearly tripled its dollar volume in performance running shoes over the last two years and has subsequently earmarked 38 stores, or nearly 30 percent of its fleet, for dedicated running departments with customized assortments for the particular market's consumers. Many of Tradehome's running customers may not even describe themselves as "core runners," and include plenty of new runners such as first-time 5K participants — but many of them don't blink at paying $150 for a pair of technical running kicks. Tradehome's run-focused doors are in all corners of the chain's retail footprint ranging from Albuquerque, NM to Chattanooga, TN and the category's dollar growth is impressive, considering performance running was barely on the chain's radar five years ago. "Running became one our biggest 'pull the rope' categories with the emergence of On and Hoka. We were onto those brands early on," says Justin Kehrwald, president and CEO of Tradehome, which is an employee stock-owned business. Kehrwald has plenty to say about the running category and the brands Tradehome does business with on a regular basis. He continues to challenge his buying team to find newness and new brands to add to its running assortments. e breakthrough for Tradehome with the running category occurred between Summer 2020 and Spring 2021 with brands that were able to manufacture products and fulfill orders despite industrywide supply chain woes. e banner's customers were introduced to "new" running brands while other retailers were TRADEHOME SHOES DIALS UP PERFORMANCE RUNNING RETAIL 14 runstyle Fall 2023 runstylemag.com Tradehome Shoes has tripled its dollar volume in performance running shoes over the past three years. THE RUNNING CATEGORY IS ON THE RISE AT THIS FOOTWEAR CHAIN. BY BOB MCGEE

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