With supply chain slowdowns mainly a thing of the past, consumers are taking their time and shopping for their shoes later this holiday season.
According to a recent survey of 1,000 likely shoe shoppers conducted by the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA), only 26 percent of shoppers plan to complete their holiday shoe shopping before Thanksgiving this year, compared to 31 percent in 2023. And 21 percent plan to complete shopping sometime in December this year, compared to 15 percent the prior year.
“For the last couple of years, because of supply chain challenges, people were concerned about getting packages on time and were buying a lot in October,” Andy Polk, senior vice president of the FDRA, told FN in an interview. “This year, it seems more like a normalized holiday where people are really expecting to make purchases from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.”
Like last year, most respondents (57 percent) said they plan to shop for their shoes in stores as opposed to online. And they again plan to shop in shoe store chains like Famous Footwear, DSW, Rack Room and Foot Locker.
When it comes to online shoe shopping, the survey found that fewer people (34 percent) plan to shop for shoes via Amazon or another shoe specific website compared to last year (43 percent). More consumers (32 percent) said they plan to shop via a shoe brand’s direct website compared to 29 percent the prior year.
“I think that’s probably a big credit to brands’ and retailers’ websites becoming a lot more functional, a lot more aesthetic and a lot more user friendly.” Polk said, adding Amazon is still an important platform for the research and discovery phase of shoe purchasing.
Polk also noted that recent U.S. presidential election results will likely have a positive impact on holiday spending this year.
“Coming off the election, I think that we’re going to have a much better holiday season this year than we did last year. I think the economy is on the right foot, people are normalized to the pricing, wages are typically up and employment is pretty high,” Polk said. “You’ve got all these [positive] economic indicators.”
Still, the survey also found that promotions will likely spur additional shoe purchases this year. 84 percent of respondents said they would be open to buying shoes in categories they were not initially considering if they saw favorable promotions.
“This year in particular, it seems there’s opportunities for second shoe sales, meaning buying multiple pairs of shoes instead of just one,” Polk said. “And I think that’s different than what we’ve seen over the past year or two.”