Digital to grow their share in footwear sales

Since the first edition of this survey, we have been asking our panel of experts about their expectations regarding the evolution of the percentage that different retail channels represents in the total sales of footwear in their country.

About two-thirds of the experts surveyed in the latest edition of the World Footwear Business Conditions Survey, conducted in April 2022, believe that digital retail channels will increase their share in footwear sales in the next three years, with the perspectives being slightly stronger for general online sellers (balance of extreme answers of 63 p.p.) than for own-brand (59 p.p.) and multi-brand (56 p.p.) retail stores.

Forecasts are much more sober for physical stores, with only one third of the respondents believing that they will increase market share. Among physical stores, large-scale retail is expected to perform better than other formats.

The views on the evolution of other non-specified retail channels continue to be positive but registering a smaller balance of extreme answers than in the previous edition of this survey (2 p.p. compared to 5 p.p. in the previous edition).

Contents
Executive Summary
Business Context
Health of the Business
Employment Level
Prices
Quantity
Difficulties
Retail Channels
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About Survey


About the Survey
In 2019 the World Footwear has created the World Footwear' expert panel and is now conducting a Business Conditions Survey every semester.

The objective of the World Footwear Experts Panel Survey is to collect information regarding the current business conditions within the worldwide footwear markets and then to redistribute such information in a way it will provide an accurate overview of the situation of the global footwear industry.

The sixth edition of this online survey was conducted during the month of April 2022. We have obtained 108 valid answers, 48% coming from Europe, 22% from Asia, 14% and 9% from North and South America, respectively, and 7% from Africa. Half of respondents are involved in footwear manufacturing (manufacturers) or footwear trade and distribution (traders) – 32% and 18%, respectively – and the other half in other footwear-related activities, including trade associations (20%), consultancy, journalism, etc.