When it comes to shoe prices, footwear players and consumers alike are on a rocky ride.
“Input costs for lifestyle and athletic brands are rising year over year, and oil is the big driver,” said Matt Priest, president and chief executive officer at Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America (FDRA). “Synthetic materials, which go into nearly every sneaker, are up, and so are rubber and the energy bills at the factories that make them.”
But those inputs and energy bills are not the only factors impacting shoe prices. “Freight is getting more expensive too, with bunker fuel pushing up Trans-Pacific rates and diesel pushing up trucking,” Priest said.
He did note that some inputs, such as leather, have eased in recent months. However, for shoes that are mostly synthetic, costs will stay elevated as long as oil prices are high, Priest said.
“Right now the increases are in the single digits. If oil stays on a higher plateau, those costs will keep working their way through the supply chain from this fall into spring 2027, and they could build well beyond that by next summer,” the FDRA CEO cautioned.
There are some offsets, but Priest said he doesn’t know for how long. For example, one bright spot is that the landed, duty-paid cost of an imported pair of shoes has fallen year-over-year for four straight months. And he said that duties are coming down faster than manufacturing costs are going up, helped in part by a stronger dollar. Some brands could be feeling input cost pressure at the same time that lower total import costs may support modestly better gross margins in the near term.
The caveat? “How long that lasts depends on oil, and on how quickly shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and refinery capacity get back to normal,” Priest said.
FDRA said this summer that shoe prices could see a five percent spike this year due in part to higher input costs. Shoe prices are already on the upswing and now there’s a chance consumers might have to pay even higher prices next year.
FDRA data points show that footwear prices in September rose a comparable 3.4 percent year-over-year. Men’s footwear prices were up 4.5 percent, women’s rose 3.9 percent, and children’s shoe prices inched up 0.4 percent.
While footwear firms have been working hard to keep shoes affordable, there’s real question as to how much of the additional costs can businesses absorb before they have to pass along those increases to consumers. And there are indications that the rising costs aren’t going away anytime soon.
Stifel analyst Peter McGoldrick, who covers athletics, footwear and lifestyle brands, noted that elevated input costs is likely to impact margin pressure for the 2027 calendar year before offsets. He said that higher input costs could reduce operating margins by 175 basis points, or 1.75 percentage points before mitigation or offsets, which could lower the reduction to 90 basis points.
In the footwear space, he hightighted Birkenstock, Deckers, Crocs and On Running as brands “relatively insulated,” helped in part by higher margins. In contrast, brands such as Under Armour and Nike could face greater risk because of lower margins. Moreover, the Stifel analyst said that Under Armour’s pricing power is unproven, while at Nike runs the risk of more promotions ahead.
McGoldrick also noted higher freight and factory costs that are moving through the inventory pipeline. The current spot for ocean rates is 51 percent above the 2026 year-to-date averate, while diesel prices are up 67 percent year-over-year. Moreover, truckload contract linehaul rates increase both inbound and outbound delivery costs. Headwinds ocean freight and diesel are building, he noted. And factory inputs — for example, cotton futures are up 175. percent year-over-year, synthetics up 6 percent year-over-year, and labor costs rose 7 percent year-over-year — increase landed product costs.
Joseph Firrincieli, sales manager at global freight forwarder OEC Group New York, said in July that forty percent of global shipping lanes are compromised due to the geopolitical landscape for global shipping lanes — namely, Suez Canal, Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz. He described conditions as the “most complicated market” he’s ever seen, adding that even fixed costs are not fixed as rates change every week or two. And there are all the surcharges that are added for a variety of reasons.
That was in the summer, and with ongoing higher diesel prices, it looks like prices are going in only one direction — and that’s up.