The footwear sector has experienced significant changes over the last year as clothing retailers grow their share of the market, with four of the five biggest players in the market currently non-specialist footwear retailers – Sports Direct, JD Sports, M&S and New Look. Footwear specialists now account for well under one-half of all footwear spending.

Clothing retailers have benefited from the trend for one-stop shopping as they stock shoes, clothes and accessories in the same store, and Mintel’s consumer research shows that a quarter of 16-24s buy their footwear from the same retailer they buy their clothes from.

Mintel estimates that footwear sales grew 5.5% in 2014 to £9.4 billion as consumers have prioritised spend on footwear and as increasingly fashion conscious men splash out on the latest shoe styles.

Definitions

The report looks at purchases of shoes through all retail channels – both specialist and non-specialist (eg clothing stores, department stores, sports shops, supermarkets, internet pureplayers, catalogue retailers, markets, garden centres etc).

This report covers the following footwear categories:

  • All footwear including trainers.

Excluded

  • Slippers

  • Specialist performance shoes.

We use ONS consumer spending on footwear data in this report, which represent purchases of shoes through all retail channels – both specialist and non-specialist (eg clothing stores, department stores, sports shops, supermarkets, internet pureplayers, catalogue retailers, markets, garden centres etc).

There is a grey area between sports shoes and casual footwear although sports trainers are classified in the government’s consumer spending data under the footwear rather than the sportswear category. The latter in terms of sports shoes is largely confined to specialist performance shoes such as football boots, athletic spikes or ski boots.

Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.

Abbreviations

AWE Average Weekly Earnings
BPS Basis Points
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CPI Consumer Prices Index
EBIT Earnings Before Interest and Tax
EBITDA Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GMI Global Market Insite Inc
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