Footwear Manufacturers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Industry Structure, How Firms Opertate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Quarterly Insight, Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 200 footwear manufacturers in the US design and market their own products, but may also contract to produce footwear for outside designers. Products include dress and casual shoes, athletic shoes and cleats, industrial shoes, sandals, boots, ballet slippers, house slippers, and orthopedic shoes.
Changes in Fashion
Consumer interest in shoes can be fickle with styles changing and falling out of favor within seasons or a few years.
Global Competition
Imports dominate the US footwear market, accounting for 98% of sales.
Industry size & Structure
The average footwear manufacturer operates a single location, employs 56 workers, and generates about $9 million in annual revenue.
- The footwear manufacturing industry consists of about 200 companies that employ 11,300 workers and generate $1.8 billion in annual revenue.
- 44% of footwear manufacturers have fewer than 5 employees, while the 10 largest firms have over 500 employees.
- The industry is highly concentrated: the 8 largest companies account for 60% of industry revenue.
- The states with the largest number of footwear manufacturing facilities are Texas, California, New York and Maine.
- Companies with domestic manufacturing operations include Gateway Shoes, San Antonio Shoemakers (SAS), Modern Vice, Minnetonka, Heyday, MacNeill Engineering (Champ brand) and Wolverine.
- Companies may have foreign operations or contract production to foreign manufacturers. Crocs sources its production from licensed manufacturers in Asia. Sketchers designs and markets footwear, but contracts the actual manufacturing to foreign producers, primarily in Asia.
Industry Forecast
Footwear Manufacturers Industry Growth
Coronavirus Update
Apr 28, 2022 - China’s Lockdowns to Further Snarl Global Supply Chains
- Logistics professionals are worried that China’s zero-COVID strategy for containing the spread of the coronavirus will trigger new disruptions to global supply chains. China’s manufacturing output decreased to its lowest level in more than two years in March as its zero-tolerance approach to the pandemic forced factories into temporary shutdowns. The Caixin/Markit purchasing managers’ index dropped from 50.4 in February 2022 to 48.1 in March. A reading below 50 suggests output is contracting rather than expanding. In March, new orders and production fell to their lowest levels since February 2020 as cost and input inflation reached a five-month high, increasing worries about stagflation.
- Vietnamese factories posted strong exports in the first quarter of 2021, despite high rates of COVID-19 infections. Total exports from Vietnam increased nearly 13% to more than $88 billion in Q1 2022, according to the country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade. Textile and garment exports rose more than 22% to $8.8 billion. According to Vietnamese government data, as of mid-April, Vietnam still had about 50,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, the highest in Southeast Asia.
- Several brands shifted some manufacturing to Vietnam and other countries due to issues like tariffs and the coronavirus pandemic, hoping to diversify their supply chain away from dependence on China. According to The Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America, about 62.2% of US athletic footwear is estimated to have been imported from China in 2021, and 23.3% from Vietnam, according to The Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America. That compares with 61.2% from China in 2020 and 24.3% from Vietnam. About 68.3% of US athletic footwear came from China As far back as 1996, and 0.2% was imported from Vietnam.
- US retail spending rose 0.4% in March 2022 compared to the previous month. Retail sales for clothing and clothing accessories stores, which includes shoe stores, grew 2.6% in March over February. However, growth in retail sales could not outpace inflation which grew at an annual rate of 8.5% in March, a new four-decade high. According to The Wall Street Journal, with gasoline prices at record highs, consumers are likely pulling back on some discretionary spending. As the Omicron variant has faded, consumers are spending more on services and less on physical goods.
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