In addition to being a shoe addict, I also like observing sales trends in specialty running stores. My go-to source for this info is Leisure Trends Group, and earlier this month they released their report for June 2012. Here’s an excerpt:
Sales of all running shoes (road, race and trail) reached $53M in June, 15% above June 2011. Road running shoes, with $50M, also gained 15%. All three running shoe categories (motion control, stability and neutral/cushion) posted dollar growth this month. Stability shoes jumped 12%, neutral cushion another 21%. Even motion control shoes eked out a 1% gain, the second straight month of increased sales for the category. Although all three categories were up, Neutral/cushion shoes increased their pace in the race to the top, just barely outselling stability shoes for the third straight month. Still, the top five best selling shoes this month were all stability models (Brooks Adrenaline men’s and women’s, Asics 2170 men’s and women’s and Saucony Progrid Guide 5, women’s)
Trail runners were ahead of June 2011 by 8%; year-to-date sales were 15% above the same period in 2011.
Minimalist shoes outpaced traditional models at retail for yet again. All minimalist running shoes pulled in $6M, up 41% from June 2011. So far this year, minimalist accounted for $31M in dollar sales.
The gist is that running shoe sales were all around strong, with neutral cushion shoes (21%) and minimalist shoes (41%) posting the biggest increases in sales over numbers from June 2011. I’m not sure how they define minimalist shoes as a category, but these numbers would indicate that they are about 10% of the specialty running market. Interesting that despite the continued strong performance of the “neutral cushioned” category, the top five selling shoes are all stability shoes (though I must admit that I have put about 50 miles on the Saucony Guide 5 and it’s a pretty solid shoe at 8mm drop!).
To read the full report, visit Leisure Trends Group.
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