Why aren't some local running shops selling Nike shoes?

Nike won't sell to small running shops and often if there is a Fleet Feet franchise around they will have some kind of agreement to only sell to them and freeze out the other stores.

same thing here. Long-established store on the main street in a college town. No Nikes. I switched to Hokas, which they carry, but had to get my wife's Nike's online. Nike sucks in many ways and my wife will be switching after this pair.

My locally owned running shoe store has sold the Nike marathon shoes and has Pegasus in stock but their website lists no other Nike models. They could probably order whatever Nike model someone wanted if they were willing to pay full retail. They stock more models of Brooks than any other. They also stock Saucony, New Balance, Hoka, Altra, Mizuno, On Cloud, and Topo. 15 minutes down the road is a Nike Factory outlet and 10 minutes in the other direction is a Dick's Sporting Goods which stocks many models of Nikes. So I am not surprised that they don't stock many Nike's. The Nike outlet has had older Pegasus models on sale for $45 to $55 and newer models only $5 to $10 more maybe. The Nike Outlet store near me never seems to have all of the most popular Nike running shoes. They always have Pegasus. My local running store has had representatives from Brooks, On Cloud, Altra, and others come on their group run night and provide demo shoes for those that want to try a model out for their group run. The demo runs ended with the outbreak of covid-19. As far as I know, no Nike representative has ever come and provided shoes for a demo run. I now run in Adidas. I don't see any Adidas models listed on their website. There was an Adidas factory outlet store 15 minutes away before the pandemic. It was closed. The Adidas website and Adidas eBay store have had many sales on the shoes that I buy. Adidas Boston 8 for $40 to $45. Adios for about $45. Solar Glide for about $45. No local retail store can compete with those prices. Only Jackrabbit's website has come close to these prices on clearance colorways.

I shop at Hansons and they can get any shoe you want. They home deliver personally. I run in Hokas now due to cushion. If you are from Michigan try them.

We sell Nike but can’t sell them online. Come into the store or call if you want Nike. We sell less Nike than Brooks Saucony New Balance Mizuno Asics and On. Nike barely out sells Adidas at our place.

Back in 2017, Nike announced that they were going to cut their number of retails partners from 30,000 to about 40 over the following few years. For running specialty shops, most of them no longer have the option of stocking Nikes.

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/nike-retail-scale-back/

podfinder wrote:

Back in 2017, Nike announced that they were going to cut their number of retails partners from 30,000 to about 40 over the following few years. For running specialty shops, most of them no longer have the option of stocking Nikes.

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/nike-retail-scale-back/

Well that business model will only work if Nike stops changing their existing models.

How has this been progressing?

I think at least for running shoes it is short sighted. I sold Nike running shoes retail even as big a name as it was in the early 80s, there were times people came in with no idea what shoe they wanted and would try on several and choose the Nike. There were times where people would come in with one shoe in mind and leave with another. Without being able to try that other shoe they would never buy it.

I am thinking the majority of runners were very brand loyal. I was but would try a lot of shoes because I got them free (or really cheap) so I had the luxury to try lots.

If you know your size and the make and model of the shoes you want, your local store is literally the worst place to buy them.

who buys Nike anymore anyway.

I will never buy another piece of Nike clothing or equipment as long as I live due to their virtue signalling hypocrisy.

heelstriking wrote:

Also when you go on Nike's website you will notice now they rarely even use white men for adverts anymore, trying to socially condition us for elimination even in ad campaigns. To hell with Nike, the shareholders of these major companies are part of a cabal out to destroy the white race.

And sadly, based on posts like yours, maybe that's a good thing.

I was told by local store that in order to sell Nike shoes they also had to agree to carry whatever line of clothing Nike was pushing at the time. Store was not willing to agree. So no Nike shoes.

heelstriking wrote:

Also when you go on Nike's website you will notice now they rarely even use white men for adverts anymore, trying to socially condition us for elimination even in ad campaigns. To hell with Nike, the shareholders of these major companies are part of a cabal out to destroy the white race.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is pretty stoked that Nike’s marketing is a turnoff to white supremacists.

I’m other news, my local running store manager tells me they just can’t get Nike shoes in stock. Their supply chain took a big hit with the COVID lockdowns. They can get scattered things (had a few pairs of Alphas from the July drop, for instance). They just can’t get any stock on a regular basis. I was in there to pick up some nutrition stuff, and it was scary how empty the wall was ... the Nike spot on their wall had 3 men’s models and maybe 4-5 women’s. I bought a pair of Pegasus from them a few months ago just to be supportive of the shop, and I’m glad I did!

NotAMathematician wrote:

I was told by a local store that in order to sell Nike shoes they also had to agree to carry whatever line of clothing Nike was pushing at the time. The store was not willing to agree. So no Nike shoes.

This. At the small local run speciality store I worked at, to carry nike we would have had to bring in so many other nike items like clothing on top of the shoes, that our small store's inventory would be most all Nike products. Also couldn't sell nike for awhile since they had a deal with Fleet Feet and our store was too close to a fleet feet location (on the opposite side of downtown) so Fleet Feet c*ckblocked us. Nike has purposely shifted their business model so that most small locally owned stores can't meet their selling requirements while staying safely in business

try this? wrote:

If you know your size and the make and model of the shoes you want, your local store is literally the worst place to buy them.

Until you actually need your local store and they are not there anymore. Support your local store, they do (or at least should be doing) a lot more than selling shoes.

podfinder wrote:

Back in 2017, Nike announced that they were going to cut their number of retails partners from 30,000 to about 40 over the following few years. For running specialty shops, most of them no longer have the option of stocking Nikes.

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/nike-retail-scale-back/

Thank you for pulling it up. I couldn't find this article for the life of me, but I knew we already had this discussion a couple years back.

This is the real answer. It's not that the stores don't want to carry them. It's that Nike doesn't want those stores to carry their shoes. More profitable for Nike to be in control of their entire supply chain from production-->final customer.

our store wrote:

We sell Nike but can’t sell them online. Come into the store or call if you want Nike. We sell less Nike than Brooks Saucony New Balance Mizuno Asics and On. Nike barely out sells Adidas at our place.

When you advertise your store, don't forget to say what store it is, and where.

doin it wrote:

podfinder wrote:

Back in 2017, Nike announced that they were going to cut their number of retails partners from 30,000 to about 40 over the following few years. For running specialty shops, most of them no longer have the option of stocking Nikes.

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/nike-retail-scale-back/

Well that business model will only work if Nike stops changing their existing models.

I don't think Nike is concerned with your thoughts on their business model.

I didn't know this was a thing. The store local to me (TCRunning) sells Nike and in fact I just saw a social media post from them that they are getting a stock of the Tempo Next%.