Columbia flip-flop sales grew against the trend, with comfortable footwear accounting for 75% of sales!

According to the eltiempo website, due to the reduced demand for people to go out due to the epidemic isolation, Colombia 's footwear sales from January to November 2020 fell 36.3% compared with the same period in 2019.

However, when the footwear industry was "frozen for thousands of miles", one category grew against the trend and created 75% of the industry's sales (from statistics from Acicam, the Colombian Footwear Association). This is comfortable footwear represented by flip-flops and sandals!

(Schematic diagram)

According to the Colombian union, comfortable footwear includes flip-flops, sandals, sneakers made of mixed materials, EVA injection-molded Crocs and garden shoes .

“Although this category has had a high market share for many years, the sales of comfort footwear have increased significantly as people seek greater comfort when working from home,” said Jorge Andrés Zuluaga, chairman of Acicam .

Footwear manufacturers share the same sentiment. “It’s clear that the way people consume fashion has changed a bit because of the reduction in mass gatherings, and it’s moving towards more casual and informal , ” said Juan Manuel Rueda, manager of Colhuellas SA.

But he also stressed that the real difference lies in the price of the product, because people will be more inclined to buy cheaper products during the crisis caused by the new coronavirus.

In terms of e-commerce sales, the Colombian Chamber of Electronic Commerce ( CCCE) reports that footwear is not a separate category, but is grouped together with fashion and beauty-related products. Between January and June 2020, this segment had an overall share of 6.1% in Colombia, with the highest share in May, at 8.7%.

If we only look at e-commerce, Linio, a well-known Latin American e-commerce platform, saw a 50% increase in footwear sales last year, with higher sales of men's tennis and sports shoes. Best-selling footwear brands include Adidas, Nike and Skechers.

In the face of the leading position of multinational companies such as Adidas and Nike in the Colombian footwear market, the president of the Acicam Association said that their promotion and marketing strategies have made them very well-known in the footwear market, but they must also support the development of local brands.

According to Euromonitor statistics, Vélez, a well-known local shoe brand in Colombia, has a market share of 5.5% with sales of US$939.9 million. Vélez has also noticed the changes in people's consumption needs and plans to focus on strengthening the production of sandals and comfortable shoes in 2021, as well as launching new footwear products.

However, footwear is always a durable product . Compared with fast-moving consumer goods such as food, people can delay the purchase of footwear and clothing. Therefore, the recovery of the footwear industry is closely related to people's economic consumption capacity.

As Loaiza, a real economy research expert at the Colombian research institute Inexmoda, said, by 2021, the recovery of the footwear industry is full of challenges, and brands must ask themselves whether they provide consumers with stable products that can not only meet their basic needs but also follow the footsteps of consumers into the new normal.

“We are entering a new normal,” Loaiza concluded.

Colombia

Comfortable footwear