Shoe Prices Expected to Rise

An interesting article was just published in The Wall Street Journal Online titled “Pain at the Other Pump: Shoe Prices Rise” by Rachel Dodes and Ray A. Smith. Apparently shoe prices in the United States have been declining over the past decade due to the huge manufacturing shift to China where about 85% of the shoes sold in the U.S. are now made

Anyhow, that’s about to change because of higher costs in China as well as higher (shipping) fuel costs as well as the weak U.S. dollar.

According to the article, Brown Shoe Company, Inc. which owns our partner Shoes.com as well as brands such as Via Spiga, Franco Sarto, and Naturalizer plans a fall increase of between 5% to 12%. We assume those increases are brand specific as the article did not discuss pricing at Shoes.com which carries hundreds of brands not associated with Brown Shoe; however, don’t be surprised though to see higher prices on most brands at all of the major retail outlets.

As a side note, we do have to mention that Brown Shoe Company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri (along with Shoes.com) and does maintain a design center in Florence, Italy where Via Spiga design work is performed. Franco Sarto is an Italian born designer who hand sketches many of his designs. Many Franco Sarto styles are manfactured in Brazil. Franco Sarto the designer does not reside in China.