Some of the world’s biggest footwear brands have been backing away from wholesalers’ shelves in favor of direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels, but new developments in shoe retailing are signaling that wholesale might prove to be the right fit for shoes in the long run.
Nike’s reduction of its allocations to Foot Locker appears to be slowing and the athletic shoe brand recently invited wholesale partners onto its campus for the first time in three years, according to The Wall Street Journal. Michael Binetti, an equity analyst at Credit Suisse, has taken this as a sign that the top athletic footwear brand is beginning to reembrace wholesale as a channel.
