COVID-19

Sports Cancellations, Store Closures Hurt March Athletic Footwear Sales

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Dollar sales of baseball, soccer and golf shoes slipped an average 30 percent in March, according to research firm The NPD Group. Performance basketball and running shoe sales also fell. NPD analyst Matt Powell says he will be watching to see if government stimulus checks positively impact athletic footwear sales. As expected given the nationwide store closures, all segments of footwear for men, women and children were down double digits in March, led by a 25 percent decline for women’s fashion footwear sales to $1.3 billion.

NPD’s Beth Goldstein said U.S. consumers did express some appetite for work-at-home comfort footwear in March: Slippers were the only fashion footwear growth category. Other categories relevant to life at home — sport slides, flip-flops, hiking footwear and mules/clogs — showed slight growth during the final week of March.