Reviewing 2025 Predictions

Some have asked how we did on our 2025 predictions. Let’s take a look.

Mass Deportations Will Be a Drag on the Economy and Inflationary

• Brands and retailers that over-index with Hispanic consumers saw weak traffic and sales.

• Areas that had intensive ICE actions saw all retail soften.

• The long-term impact remains unclear, but it will not be positive.

Tariffs Will Be Inflationary

• Brands did a great job holding off on price increases, using every possible tool to keep prices down.

• Recent results indicate that we’ll see higher prices as we move into 2026.

• The big unknown is that prices for everything are going up.

• 10% of the population accounts for 50% of consumption. The vast majority of consumers are really struggling.

Newness and Freshness Drive Sales

• This was an easy one. Newness and freshness have always driven retail.

• The problem is that we don’t have enough newness and freshness.

Smaller Challenger Brands Will Continue to Thrive

• Smaller brands continue to outperform larger ones.

• However, we began to see a softening among some of the challenger brands.

Share Shift Will Continue on Footwear Walls

• While there are clearly green shoots for Nike, the brand is still not healthy yet.

• Opportunity remains for retailers to exploit smaller brands.

Performance-as-Fashion Trend Maintains

• Some are trying to say activewear is over.

• Recent air travel would argue against that.

Women Will Drive the Trends

• This has become more clear as we moved through the year.

• The challenge for brands and retailers is how to respond to this shift and how to listen to the consumer voice.

But Women Will Remain Underserved by the Market

• Evergreen.

Color Is Everywhere (Too Much?)

• The extreme colors we saw had a decent reaction from consumers.

• However, many of the wildest colors are now flooding the clearance racks.

Category Trends in Footwear

• Performance run won the year and likely will in the future.

• Retro remains very important, but must be fresh.

• Low profile continues to be a winning silhouette.

Don’t Sleep on Skechers

• The Skechers acquisition rocked the industry.

• What will Skechers be like under private ownership?

Business Becomes More Normal (as in Plannable)

• Nothing really feels normal anymore.

All in, barring the macro issues I began with, I expected 2025 to be a good but not great year.

• Looks like this one was optimistic.