Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1527579
HEARD AROUND THE INDUSTRY… THEY SAID IT... August 7, 2024 Arne Freundt, CEO of PUMA SE "Unfortunately, the geopolitical situation is not improving, and the freight market has also become more challenging than what we anticipated at the beginning of the year, resulting in higher costs for the second half of the year. On the consumer sentiment side, we continue to see that the major markets are not showing any significant improvements. us, we continue to focus on bringing newness and innovation to the market to excite our consumers and retailers, because we know that this is working." July 31, 2024 Bjorn Gulden, CEO of Adidas AG "When it gets to the U.S. and tariffs, we have basically tried not to source any products anymore from China into the U.S… Supply chain plans for the U.S. are not involved in China. So, I think we are in good shape, should [tariffs] come… Given the attention, we have steered away from Chinese production into the U.S. market." Aug. 13, 2024 David Allemann, Co-Founder & Executive Co-Chairman of On Holding AG "Dream On, the spirit that drives our athletes is the same mantra that fuels our team's bold, innovative vision and mindset. Our new LightSpray technology is proof of that. It came to life aer one of our team members saw the potential to use a hot glue gun to spray a shoe like Spiderman would do with web fluid. 40 years ago, we backed this crazy dream, as one of our innovation moonshots with resources at On Labs. From there on, our team came together to test, challenge and build on every setback to reach new ideas for what would eventually result in the new Cloudboom Strike LightSpray. It features an ultralight upper that is sprayed, not built, in a one step process automated by a robotic arm in just three minutes." Sept. 5, 2024 Rick Brooks, CEO of Zumiez "I think there's a whole switch in the look of young people today and it's a lot back to the late 90s or 2000s. And we're seeing the bottoms reflect it. We're seeing the tops reflect it. We're seeing the footwear reflect that look." Sept. 4, 2024 Lauren Hobart, President and CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods "We continue to make the digital shopping experience better for our athletes and recently launched several features to help accelerate this journey, including elevated imagery, 3D viewing of select footwear, and AI-powered chat features." n Aug. 7, 2024 Chris Hufnagel, President and CEO of Wolverine Worldwide "On the lifestyle side, Saucony has authentically leveraged its deep product archive along with influential collaborations tapped into the fast-growing retro tech trend. With styles like the ProGrid Omni, ProGrid Triumph and Ride Millennium driving strong sell- throughs and opening future distribution with the best retailers in tier zero through tier two." 20 Footwear Insight Business Report Quarterly ~ Q3 October 7 2024 footwearinsight.com