When one thinks of sneakers, the mind immediately jumps to brands like Nike (NKE), Puma (PUMA) and Adidas (ADDDF) — the retail giants have more or less dominated the athletic footwear giant for decades.
Other brands making athletic footwear is either smaller and more niche or one or two products in a larger clothing collection. That, however, is not stopping Lululemon (LULU)'s from trying to take some of that market cap with its new shoe line.
Lululemon Is Going Into Shoes Now?
After years of selling legging, hoodies and sports bras, the athletic apparel company announced the launch of its first running shoe earlier this week.
Lululemon
Known as the Blissfeel, the women's shoe will sell for $148 in stores across North America, China and the U.K. from March 2.
More sneaker, training shoe and pool slide styles known as Chargefeel, Strongfeel and Restfeel will be unveiled in the coming months while a men's footwear connection will come sometime next year.
While Lululemon has previously experimented with a few very limited-edition shoe collections, the Blissfeel is the first official footwear item to sell as part of the brand's permanent offering.
"We are entering the footwear category the same way we built our apparel business — with products designed to solve unmet needs, made for women first," Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald said in a statement.
The Footwear Wars Are Heating Up:
As the pandemic pushed many into permanently ditching business casual for sportier and more comfortable clothes, sneaker sales also soared.
Lululemon
Lululemon
The global athletic footwear market is expected to grow from $70 billion in 2020 to $102 billion in 2025.
This means, in turn, that there is room for more variety on the market as the consumer tries new lines and shifts slightly away from the biggest names. Nike's worth is now at $30.44 billion, a drop of around $4 billion from 2020. Adidas was valued at $14.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 from $16.5 billion in 2020.
Lululemon, of course, is hardly the David in the Goliath story. While the Vancouver-based started out as a local West Coast company, it is now has nearly 500 stores on four continents and was worth $41.45 billion as of March 2022.
As Lululemon already competes with the likes of Nike and Adidas for market share in the workout clothing and athleisure categories, a footwear line will only further up the ante.
"Footwear is the natural next step for us to expand and apply our long history of innovation in fit, feel and performance, and it represents an exciting moment for our brand," McDonald said.
