Mintel estimates that footwear sales grew 6.5% in 2015 to £10.3 billion, outperforming the clothing market, as shoes remain a high priority in consumers’ spending on fashion items.
Among the leading footwear retailers, the fashion-driven specialists such as Office and Schuh are outperforming the market, showing that their compelling product offering at affordable prices resonates well with young fashion shoppers. Despite this, non-specialists continue to dominate the footwear market, led by clothing retailers, sports goods retailers and pureplays.
Finding shoes that fit is the second most important factor after comfort when purchasing footwear, particularly among women. There is scope for retailers to use the latest technology such as 3D printing to deal with issues surrounding fit and to improve the shoe shopping experience both in-store and online.
Definitions
The report looks at purchases of shoes for adults and children 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 represents 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.
