Sole Survivors
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by Chief Marketer Staff
Although fewer pairs of athletic shoes flew off the shelves in 1999, price hikes helped overall sales remained essentially unchanged at $13.7 billion, compared with $13.8 billion the year before. That’s according to The NPD Group, which clocked the total number of pairs sold last year at 313 million, down from 325.4 million in 1998. Female feet were more in fashion last year, and women paid more than ever for the privilege, too. In 1999, the average price of women’s athletic shoes rose five percent to $43.88, a 17-percent climb since 1995. Men’s pairs, by contrast, rose only one percent to $50.84 last year, a gain of just seven percent since `95. Let’s see what the rising price of petroleum does for those bigger soles.
