The End of Drop Culture
I was watching the local news, on TV, in real time (cue the ageist comments), when I saw an ad for limited edition (wait for it) ….
Cottage Cheese.
If the dairy industry is doing cottage cheese drops, then we know for sure that the era of drop culture has come to an end.
During the challenging year of 2022, many sneaker brands leaned heavily on drops to try to drive volume. For the most part it did not work. Offering up the 37th colorway in a tired style is no way to get growth. From channel checks it was clear that many “limited” shoes were far from limited. Styles that used to sell out in hours sat for weeks.
The resale market for limited shoes has collapsed. Many colors are offered at or below MSRP. Resellers are having to promote to drive slow moving inventory.
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I have Google alerts set for all the brands I follow. It seems like there is a new drop announced about every 10 seconds. If there are that many drops coming out, then they are just noise, with little impact.
Some brands seem more focused on drops than on creating great core products. They may be getting a lot of likes on social media, but the core is burning down around them.
There is little wonder that the formerly dominant brands are seeing sales and share sink?while upstarts like Hoka, On, and Hey Dude are gaining. The lack of freshness at retail is appalling.
Some brands are still executing drops well, using them to introduce models from the vaults and then following up with more commercial looking styles. New Balance has been particularly adept at this technique.
As we always do in this industry, we’ve killed the goose that laid the Golden Egg.
The drop is dead. Long live the drop.
Digital Specialist
2 年Always giving the real story
Chief Executive Officer - Footwear, Sporting Goods, Apparel, Tactical Products: Consulting-Metcalfe Consulting
2 年Great observation and topic #MattPowell , tks. Athletic brands need to re-establish sports performance product authenticity. Cool always followed authentic even if just a technology component was the link. The "fashion brands" always wanted sports cool but could not get it. Then enter "collab world". Now the fashion brands could show up in association with sports brands. Usually adding their "special touch" to profiles that already had established cool and commercial success. To me all this collab hype is a slap in the face to the original, in line designers who created a great product. Usually with less resources, initial marketing.Many of these special collabs are "new color, fabric, other brand logo added, etc". That's like paint by numbers after the real design work was done by the original designer and developers. The athletic footwear brands need to get back to precisely designed product/technologies, from authentic, athletic consumer insight and edit down the line with purpose. A new freshness and energy level will not come from "stuff", the athlete, consumer and industry needs excitement brought back with less jive, drops, collabs! How about authentic, innovative! All the model extensions come after that initial success.
Lacoste National Specialty Account Manager
2 年good read, thank you!
AI & Product Strategy Leader | Strategic Partnerships, M&A | Growth & Innovation Catalyst | CEO Advisor | Y-Combinator Founder & ex-IBM
2 年Boring product + outdated UX are the issues. This is a byproduct of poor hiring practices - how much new thinking can come from a 10 mile radius of Portland? Concept of "drops" are still alive, but on life support. Products are stale and everything has become a drop. The drop mechanism also didn't change. SNKRS and Confirmed have also been the same user experience (UX) for the better part of 5 years. Its time to bring in new DNA and fresh thinkers - and they don't live in Portland.
IT Senior Business Relationship Manager - State of Oregon
2 年Thanks for your insights Matt…the pendulum swings back…..