The shop didn't bring me the brands I follow
Why the brands you follow online aren't the ones the shop puts on your feet — and the opening that leaves.
Dan Coe
Jun 19
New shape for the Brief: one idea a week instead of the roundup — more a point of view on why it matters than a rundown of what happened. Let me know what you think.
Monday's piece sized up the trail field and landed on a tidy little injustice: the challengers own the culture, the incumbents own the money. A few of you wrote back with the obvious question, which is also the one I left hanging — why? If these brands have the following, why isn't it showing up in sales?
Here's the thing I keep coming back to, and it's from my own feet. Last time I needed shoes, I went into a Bay Area running shop (Runner's Mind — great shop, BTW), answered the typical questions, and they came back with three pairs to try: Altra, Saucony, Salomon. All incumbents. Not one of the brands I actually follow online. And I bought one of the three, like everyone does.
That little moment is the whole answer, I think. Footwear is the one thing you don't buy on vibes — it's $200, it's fit-critical, and you want to run down the sidewalk before you commit. So the sale happens at the fit consult. And the consult can only hand you what's on the wall — which is the brands that have earned the shelf, backed the shop, and de-risked the buy. The challenger's voice never makes it into that room — or onto the staff's shortlist of what to recommend. It's loud everywhere except the one place the shoe actually gets sold.
Pop-ups don't fix it, and I say that as someone who loves a good one. A pop-up is a great moment, but buying shoes is an errand that hits most of us a few times a year — the odds the pop-up is in your city, on your week, with exactly what you're looking for, are basically a lottery. It's a strategy of hope.
Which makes me think there's a real opening here — an unmet need for a new way for these brands to be try-on-able where runners already are. I'm digging into what that could look like for a bigger piece. If you've built (or bought from) something that cracked this, hit reply — I want to hear it.
Read · Running
BRAND as STUDIO
Excited to share our first deep dive piece, Brand as Studio, where we share the media strategy behind the brands like Red Bull, Huckberry, and YETI who have led the way and challengers who are showing us where to start. Read it →