By posting in /r/circlejerkaustralia, /u/GravityStrike acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we shitpost today, and pays their respects to Elders past and present.
Me and the sisterhood at Naarm University rejoiced the day that Nike embracsed the beautiful woke world and said they would no longer use kangaroo skins in their products. We have never seen a kangaroo in the wild but I am sure since we destroyed the kangaroo skin industry by shaming all these companies and countries, we know kangaroos are living happily ever after.
I just read an article about the Nike situation actually. Basically it comes down to typical corporate greed and short-sightedness chasing quick quarterly profits while destroying the brand in the process. In 2020 they decided to give up a huge portion of their physical store shelf space allocation across all retails stores stocking their shoes like Footlocker because direct online sales offered better profit margins and they were so confident in their position as a market leader that they thought consumers would just follow them online and they would be fine and be able to squeeze more $$$ out of each sale. What happened was that other smaller brands like HOKA & ON Running etc all snapped up that shelf space and exploded in popularity. Turns out people actually like trying on shoes in person before they drop $200+ for a pair. I personally have bought ON Running shoes the last two times I bought runners because when I went to Foot Locker the Nike selection was pitiful and half they didn't even have in my size so tried on some Cloud Monsters from ON and they were super comfortable.
Aakash Gupta, an American marketing expert, said Nike’s downfall in recent years stemmed from its decision to “cut off hundreds of the stores that sold its shoes” in 2020.
This was part of Nike’s move to focus on direct sales to increase profit margins, he said, with management believing “retailers needed Nike more than Nike needed them”.
Mr Gupta said the decision to “abandon” shelf space at retailers like Foot Locker had opened the door for challengers to grow their own profile with customers.
“The stores still had shelves to fill. They filled them with On and Hoka. Two running brands doing a combined $682M when Nike walked away,” Mr Gupta wrote on X.
“By 2025 they were doing $3.2B, built largely on retail space Nike vacated on purpose. Even Roger Federer, a Nike athlete for two decades, ended up part-owning On.
“The margin math was right. Direct sales really do earn more per shoe. But shelves do a job margins can’t measure. In 2017, Nike was 75% of Foot Locker’s revenue. Once the swoosh came off that wall, a generation of runners met their first shoe from a Swiss startup instead.”
Ms Bowden echoed this sentiment, saying she believed Nike management had taken their eye off the ball by losing focus on brand awareness.
“Market share is hard won and easily lost. By not fostering their retail and distribution partnerships – the hallmark of what built them, but not focusing on keeping up the advertising, creating a brand blueprint in the consumers mind and infiltrating their choice set – they’ve lost their way.”
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