The Athletic Shoe Industry: Rivalry In The Athletic Shoe Industry

New Balance was founded by William J. Riley in 1906 in the city of Boston. Riley started by making arch supports for customers who had to spend all day on their feet. Over time the building of arch supports led to the creation of his first running shoe in 1925. As part of a local running club, Riley capitalized on an opportunity to improve running shoes of the time and his designs became widely popular. His new running shoes became so popular that by the 1940’s that production spread from running to many other sports. Then the expansion of the manufacturing significantly increased as he realized a need to running shoes with more selection for wider feet, and

The Athletic shoe industry had its start in 1892 when U.S Rubber company invented Keds and by

Obviously, there is a big number of driving forces in the athletic footwear industry. Each of these driving forces has different impacts—some of them can have a more considerable effect than others on figuring out how much cross-company differences influence market shares and a number of units sold. The first line of most influential factors includes comparative prices, S/Q ratings, and a number of models offered among the footwear competitors. These three most important competitive forces affect customer decisions of which athletic footwear brand to choose. Furthermore, the decisions of customers whether to purchase one brand or another are also influenced by such forces as advertising, celebrity endorsements, the number of independent retail

Nike is a huge supplier if athletic shoes for the world these days. Philip H. Knight, the founder of this corporation came up with an idea of an athletic shoe at the track field of the University of Oregon.

In analyzing the market/industry, the company was able to see some things that helped shape their plan. The first was rivalry among competing sellers. Our analyses indicated that there were 9 companies in the shoe industry that Competitive Shoes considered rivals. These companies were relatively new in the industry and produced the same types of shoes as Competitive Shoes. Due to this fact, they knew that the rivalry would be fierce since Competitive Shoes was going to produce a product that was like theirs, and the difference between the products would diminish as the products of industry rivals became strongly differentiated. This indicated to Competitive Shoes that brand loyalty would be minimal and buyers could easily switch brands at will. Competitive Shoes felt that they could produce the same quality shoes as the high-end producers, while at the same time lowering its production cost and offering the product at a lower price. This would make it easy for buyers to switch brands at will.

6). This strategy is a major component of Nike’s business strategic level plan. In applying this strategy, Nike has attained a great deal of consumer insight, which it uses to offer uniquely designed premium products to the athletes. Still on product differentiation, Nike focuses more on research and development at a greater level. These unique features to Nike, have transformed the competition levels in this competitive industry, leading to a trend of a paradigm shift in the market. Most consumers opt for Nike branded sports products and apparels, at the expense of the other brand names.

Many of the big established shoe brands have seen consolidation and hence they have become bigger and more powerful in terms of competing with the rest.

The threat of new entrants in the athletic shoe industry is very weak. Currently the market is dominated by three major competitors, and

Nike was founded under the name Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964. In 1972 the first pair of sports shoes was sold and experienced enormous growth and achieved a 50% market share within the sports shoe market in the US only eight years later.

The athletic footwear industry includes all producers of shoes designed in an athletic style or for an athletic use. We define the active footwear industry as an industry that manufactures shoes for active lifestyles. The primary focus of this analysis is on the United States market as it represents roughly 32% of the overall footwear market (PRWeb,

Competition is very fierce due to the number of companies competing for sales. Lots of money goes to marketing and promotions using various channels to reach the young demographic group of consumers who spend the most money on Nike’s products. Growth is slowing down in the athletic footwear industry. But new markets are emerging with high growth rates. These markets include extreme sports market and the corporate merchandise market.

The athletic footwear industry consists of shoes for a variety of uses. Running, walking, aerobic, hiking, biking, gym, and shoes for various sports are considered athletic footwear. The athletic footwear forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 2.1% between 2016 and 2022. The demand for athletic footwear will continue to increase over the next seven years. This demand is fueled by the change in populations around the world. The increase in urbanization will continue to increase the demand for athletic footwear.

Seeking Behaviour Although Nike is the market leader in sports shoes, this doesn't guarantee consumers will switch to competitors alternatives. There are consumers who switch brands in an attempt to be different. This is often due to changes in fashion 4.6 Consumer Decision Making in the sports shoe market, for a running shoe: Total Set

In 1962, Nike started as a US distributor for the Japanese shoe manufacturer Onitsuka under the name of Blue Ribbon Sports selling merchandise out of the back of cars at track meets. It wasn’t long before they realized they wanted to start designing and manufacturing their own brand of athletic footwear. In 1972, they changed their name to Nike and developed their iconic swoosh logo. Their first innovative shoe featured a waffle outsole that was lightweight and provided superior traction. Through quality, innovation, endorsements and strategic decisions the company had captured 50 percent of the US running shoe market by 1979.

However in the late 1960's, the concept of "jogging" started to spread in the U.S., which was by now a huge market for the adidas® group. The adidas technicians initially dismissed the jogging trend by contending that ‘jogging is not a sport'. But their distributors in America started to demand for products for jogging. Finally when the technicians gave into the pleas of the American distributors, they still couldn't figure what the American customers required. While Germans tended to run on forest trails, the Americans jogged on roads and clamoured for soft shoes. When adidas® finally came up with the shoes, it was too little, too late. In the first