Puma Team

Puma is going to assist with traveling funds and equipment. At least one of the runners who may be joining the team is a sub-30 10K runner - until it is officially announced by him I am not going to divulge his identity.

Have not heard of any standards for being sponsored at this time.

I'll say this - Olympic year is coming up. As always the shoe companies will expand their sponsorship of athletes, but in 2005 it will all dry up.

Puma has a small presence in shoe stores on the West Coast. Frankly I do not see this as the key ingredient to greater market share. Either your shoes work or they don't - if they work you'll find them in shoe stores. Ask someone at Nike or Adidas who they are keeping their eye on and it is New Balance and Asics - both companies with loyal customers.

I'm digressing. Check with the Puma rep through your local running store if you want more info.

Unless PUMA has hired some running tech guys/gals to get the ball rolling, they will never be a player. They still have soccer reps attempting to cover the running specialty accounts in most markets and I know for a fact one rep in particular was basically hand held into 15 top running specialty stores in the midwest, had several opportunites to present at big college and high school cross country meets and road race expos and dropped the ball on all of these opportunties. The guy never returned phone calls after committing to these events, never showed up, no follow-through on prodcut catalogs or sample shoes to try for store buyers and really made PUMA look very bad not to mention those contacts who attempted to get him into some potential key accounts and opportunites to develope market share. Good Luck.

Look for Puma to start making inroads in the U.S. running market. They've got good shoes, they've just gotta start getting them into stores. It all takes time.

Is that why they bought a Hummer to peddle shoes here in the Pacific NW?

If you are a running specialty store you have limited space to bring in a new company - let's face it, Puma has been non-existent in the US running market for years - so why take a plunge with Puma? You have a known quality product in Asics, New Balance, Adidas, Nike and Reebok.

NW, you mentioned Reebox and quality in the same sentence, WOW.

Forgot to mention Saucony & Mizuno. Two that I would place before NB & Reebok.

Puma has always had a distribution problem..They also dont have sales reps..none that work directly for Puma..They have a contract with a Sales Rep group..at least here on the east coast...They have a long way to go

In our store it is:

1. Asics 29%

2. Brooks 21%

3. Mizuno 15%

4. Nike 11%

5. Adidas 10%

6. Saucony 8%

7. NB 5%

8. Reebok 2%

This is including spike sales. Without spikes both Nike and Adidas fall behind Saucony.

We do about 950K in shoe sales annually.

geeez...nike and adidas are the only two shoe companies that seem to come out with shoes that people interested in performance can really deal well with. Saucony hasnt made a shoe that really is light enough in my own opinion.

so i guess noone has any answers as to who is on the team or how many guys they have or who the Coach is...

I'm just glad that they're putting money into the athletes, I can care less if they increase their share on the West Coast...

I don't know why everyone in down on the new Reebok line...I am alternating 3 different kinds of Reeboks right now and am very pleased with the new premier line...now if they can get out of the hole they dug themselves I don't know but the new shoes are very very good...

so does anyone know who else is on the team or who the Coach is?

The Brooks T3 Racers and the Racer ST are two of the nicer racing flats I've seen. I've run in the ST and love it. Wish I was neutral enough to wear the T3-- they feel as light as socks.

www.brooksrunning.com

Why does Brooks limit their distribution? Brooks business plan is messed up. They spend lots of bucks on Hansens and then will not sell their product to running specialty stores. SMART!

ONeill wrote:

Why does Brooks limit their distribution? Brooks business plan is messed up. They spend lots of bucks on Hansens and then will not sell their product to running specialty stores. SMART!

I have never heard such a thing. Is this true? Please tell me what area of the country you are from and what stores have been denied product? I promise that I will follow up on it.

Uh..you have it all wrong. Brooks main source of distribution is through specialty running shops.

ONeill wrote:

Why does Brooks limit their distribution? Brooks business plan is messed up. They spend lots of bucks on Hansens and then will not sell their product to running specialty stores. SMART!

That statement really makes a lot of sense.... "Let's limit who we sell our product too...that way we make less money!" Great idea!

A better reason is that Brooks is not one of the brands that most running specialty stores consider a must have on their shoe wall. I'm sure if it were up to the folks at Brooks, their shoes would be in every big and small running store, sports store and grocery store from Seattle to Timbuktu.

S. Dvorak wrote:

A better reason is that Brooks is not one of the brands that most running specialty stores consider a must have on their shoe wall. I'm sure if it were up to the folks at Brooks, their shoes would be in every big and small running store, sports store and grocery store from Seattle to Timbuktu.

Thank you but you are only partially correct. We have pulled our product out of all of the big boxes in favor of distributing through running specialty shops only. We consider ourselves a running and walking only company and feel that we need to be loyal to the business that has been loyal to us. Our partnership with Hansons is because of shared beliefs.

8k wrote:

NW, you mentioned Reebox and quality in the same sentence, WOW.

Forgot to mention Saucony & Mizuno. Two that I would place before NB & Reebok.

It is true that Reebok has bad reputation to overcome. Their shoes from years past were terrible. But their current line of shoes is excellent. I tried one or two of their shoes years past and agree they were terrible. But I have to admit: the Premier Lite is very good training shoe. And the Premier Comp is an excellent racing shoe. Shoe reviewers these days seem to agree.