NO TIME TO WASTE

Post pandemic, many things are up for re-invention and one of these is the model by which we create footwear and put it out into the world. The traditional supply and demand model around which most businesses are based is no longer fit for purpose.

Footwear creation in particular, is a difficult model to change but change it must if we are to address the pressing resource and climate change issues stacking up at our door. So let’s take an honest look at where we are…

Image; Kellie French/The Guardian

In a nutshell the current system usually works like this:

Every single year we (by ‘we’ I mean brands and those of us involved in creation and product), produce large, multiple ranges of product based on infinite riffs on one or more creative theme or trend. We pad these ranges out further with commercial fill ins, based on second guesses on what retailers might want including evolutions of products that sold last time and tweaks on existing products that can be re-packaged as ‘new’ or ‘exclusive’. Finally we add in some additional ideas from a few people in the organisation we don’t want to offend…

In the footwear creation process, teams are often working 2 years out (sometimes more) from the drop date. You can imagine how hard this is and that collectively the instinct is to hedge your bets and produce a few more (or a few hundred more) styles than you need in the hope that one or a few will hit the mark of what the consumer might want in the moment.

We layer on more and more resource into the design, development and engineering of all these styles, pushing up the over heads and creating an ever, riskier recipe with lengthening odds of getting back the initial investment. We seek to mitigate this risk with expensive marketing and by driving up the mark-ups so that even if we only sell 40% - 50% of the stuff we make at full price (based on current industry estimates) we can still cover our costs. What this does at both of the sharp ends of this model, is to drive up the retail ticket for the consumer, drive down the amount paid to the suppliers and create a mountain of waste in the middle.

The global footwear market is valued at around $352 billion in retail sales. This translates into an annual global consumption that is estimated at between 14.5 billion and 19 billion pairs of shoes per year - or roughly two to two-and-a-half pairs for every person on the planet. Most of these are not sold at full price and this figure doesn’t include the container loads of raw materials that are cancelled before they’re even made, or the pairs off loaded into re-sale markets around the world. Out of that number it’s estimated that around 90% will eventually end up in landfill. It’s a grim number when you look at it through the lens of the planet’s resources….

The footwear industry is already struggling with sustainability, lagging behind apparel due to the difficulties of re-cycling a product with multiple components as well as finding alternatives to the fossil fuels that drive outsole manufacture and the leather that creates uppers. Still progress is being made. There are many responsible brands, CEO’s and suppliers and brilliant scientific and creative minds addressing these issues in a variety of urgent and inventive ways throughout the footwear industry. Tackling things like supply chain transparency, raw material providence, manufacturing emissions, biodegradability, end of life disposal and circular design. These are all more than commendable and to be applauded but how much impact can these initiatives really have in the short time we have to address this when the basic creation and business model remains the same? When, despite our genuine desire to do better, we are still trying to sell and produce more and more every single year? It’s like having one foot on the accelerator and the other hovering over the brake.

We need to make fewer shoes.

We need to design less, develop less, discount less and send less to landfill.

Footwear is an item driven business. Many of the world’s most successful brands built their business on one iconic design, Timberland, Vans, Converse, Dr Marten’s Birkenstock to name a few.

And indeed this is how most of us shop now. We know what we want and why and we go and look for it.

This is especially true of on-line shopping and the shift to D2C gives us a unique opportunity to change the model. To be more considered to create better quality product and reject fast fashion.

If we can predict better what we’ll want and need, to wear in the future by taking the time to look at the world and what’s happening in it and react accordingly we can start to create in a more considered way singular products that will be right in the moment and sell through at a fair and non-discounted price .

2020 gave us a crystal clear demonstration of how this approach can work, with most successful brands able to trace their uptick or slump in sales to world events…

Unrest & protest?; Dr Martens.

Natural and Local? Birkenstock

This is one approach but still a risky one. World events can pivot suddenly and without warning and we’re left with unsold stock again. In reality the D2C revolution gives us the only long term solution to this problem which is to shift from supply and demand to an on demand model. This is a big change and not one that will happen overnight. It will involve a move from globalisation to localisation in manufacturing, most certainly legislation, but most fundamentally a shift in attitude and a rejection of throwaway culture. While this may seem like a huge task we should remind ourselves that the current consumerist model has existed for only the last 50 years.

While we work on that transition, we as an industry can be braver in our planning and decision making process. We can spend more time creating considered, singular products that hit the target rather than multiple variations on a theme. We can be a little less seasonal and a bit more timeless in our approach. We can produce Less…

At RAYY we believe in the considered approach to creation, asking why? not just what.

We help brands find their footwear Niche.

Contact us to have a chat about this or anything else.