Are Footwear Price Increases Leveling Off?
Stephen Garner
Senior Editor
Billboard Women in Music 2025
Shoe price increases decelerated in May — in tandem with overall consumer retail prices, according to the latest data from the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA).
Gains in retail footwear price increases decelerated for the second straight month in May, but still rose 1.1 percent from a year earlier, the FDRA reported on Wednesday. Men’s footwear led the gains last month, with prices up 2.1 percent, followed by women’s shoes, which rose 1.4 percent. Boys’ and girls’ footwear declined, however, with prices down 1.1 percent.
Gary Raines, chief economist at FDRA, told FN that footwear prices have risen year-over-year for the ninth straight month and 35 of the last 38 months. Even so, prices so far this year are up just 1.0 percent from the same first five months of last year, continuing to support FDRA’s earlier outlook that full-year footwear prices also may see a relatively modest increase.
“In fact, over the long term, changes in year-to-date footwear prices through May explain a good bit of the variation in full-year prices,” Raines said. “We estimate that currently there’s about a two-in-three chance that retail footwear prices in 2024 will rise from 0.4 percent to 1.6 percent, giving retailers some assurance of relatively stable prices ahead for footwear. Of course, with each passing month, this forecasted range should narrow.”
Raines added that boys’ and girls’ footwear prices are down 1.2 percent from the same first five months of last year. “We estimate that currently there’s about a two-in-three chance that children’s retail footwear prices in 2024 will sink between 0.1 percent to 2.3 percent,” Raines noted. “If this decline comes to fruition, 2024 will mark only the second annual decline in the last fourteen years for children’s footwear prices.”
This latest bump in footwear prices comes at the same time the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that overall retail prices decelerated modestly for the second straight month.
The bureau’s latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) saw prices remain unchanged last month from April and up 3.3 percent from the same month last year. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the core CPI rose 0.2 percent in May and 3.4 percent from the same month in 2023.
“We haven’t seen this kind of sustained increase in apparel and footwear prices in decades,” Nate Herman, senior vice president of policy at the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), told FN. “We are witnessing the most sustained increase in footwear prices in over 40 years, after decades of deflation. This increase is having a real impact on consumers, who must buy shoes for themselves and their families.”
