As if competition with huge chain stores, with their vast volumes of inventory and often lower prices, were not challenging enough to independent shoe retailers, many of them are now confronting pressure from upstream in the supply chain. Some of the major shoe manufacturers, including Nike and adidas, reportedly have instituted minimum purchase levels before they will stock a retailer with their popular products. For small firms, those minimums are far out of reach. For example, to achieve the level reportedly required by Nike, $20,000 worth of inventory, the store would have to order, stock, and sell about 500 pairs of sneakers. Considering that many of these independent retailers function out of tiny storefronts, they cannot even imagine where to put all those boxes, much less how they would get their small town shoppers to buy that many athletic shoes. In response, some stores are closing; industry estimates indicate that the number of independent shoe sellers in the United States has fallen to about 6000 stores. Others are determined to keep their doors open and encourage their customers—many of whom they know personally and have served for years—to consider alternative brands that do not impose the inventory thresholds on them, like Brooks or Saucony. But in so doing, they still confront the challenges of modern retailing. Customers who visit the store to get a professional fitting still can purchase the right pair online. Customers who have ordered online and are unhappy with the fit even might visit the store and take up valuable staff time and attention in their effort to find some solution. Yet the retailers seemingly have little choice. For the big manufacturers, inventory requirements make sense, because in many cases, they would just as soon sell directly to customers through their websites, rather than having to expend the resources to ship tiny pallets of just a dozen or so shoes to a tiny store in Smalltown, USA.

Source: Murray Carpenter, The New York Times, June 18, 2019