World

US: footwear prices increase but at a slower pace

Oct 21, 2022 United States

While high inflation remains a concern for the country's economy, data from the FDRA continues to suggest that the increase in footwear prices is somewhat moderating

According to the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA), footwear prices grew by 3.9% last month, year-over-year, which corresponds to the slowest increase recorded in 17 months. By category, men's footwear prices were up by 3.1%, women's by 4.8% and children's by 3.5%. These increases are below the broader-based Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the Bureau of Labour Statistics, showing an increase of 8.2% in September, as compared to the same month of 2022.

In a note to Footwear News, FDRA pointed out that retail footwear prices are higher because import costs for footwear have also continued to rise. In reality, even with the deceleration observed in the last two months, footwear prices grew by 5.5% in the first nine months of 2022, year-over-year, and are still on track to rise in 2022 at the sharpest rate in decades.

Nevertheless, as footwear supply is expected to beat demand by a wide margin this year – footwear imports, a proxy for supply, so far, are up by about 24.3%, on a comparable basis to the same period of last year –, "we continue to expect retail footwear price increases will be higher than trend but will continue to moderate – slowly - as we head into 2023", concludes FDRA.

Image Credits: cnbc.com

United States FDRA Footwear Prices Retail