Mercury Shoes - Key Issues

The background of this paper we need to mention is that West Coast Fashions, Inc. (WCF), a large designer and marketer of branded apparel announced a strategic reorganization calling for a divestiture of certain assets, and one of the divisions it intended to shed was Mercury Athletic, its wholly owned footwear subsidiary. John Liedtke, the head of business development for Active Gear, Inc. (AGI), a privately held athletic and casual footwear company, contemplated an acquisition opportunity of Mercury that would significantly improve his business. So, he wanted to evaluate this opportunity.

Athletic footwear cannot be designed to cater to a large group as in general. It has to produceits products with a distinct difference keeping in mind the age groups or usage groups it isintending to target.

Nike is one of the biggest footwear and apparel manufacturing companies in the word. The company came into existence in 1964 by Bill Boweman and Phil Knight and named it as the Blue Ribbon Sports. The company changed the name to Nike, which is Greek word meaning victory, in 1972 after producing a good brand of shoes that became popular among the athletes (NIKE, Inc., 2001). Since then, the company has been successful, dominating the world market of athletic shoes. The company’s products are sold in more than 170 countries across the world. The company also sponsors various sports events at national and international levels. The company slogan “just do it” is catchy and attract many people tom

New Balance was founded by William J. Riley in 1906 in the city of Boston. Riley started by making arch supports for customers who had to spend all day on their feet. Over time the building of arch supports led to the creation of his first running shoe in 1925. As part of a local running club, Riley capitalized on an opportunity to improve running shoes of the time and his designs became widely popular. His new running shoes became so popular that by the 1940’s that production spread from running to many other sports. Then the expansion of the manufacturing significantly increased as he realized a need to running shoes with more selection for wider feet, and

The Athletic shoe industry had its start in 1892 when U.S Rubber company invented Keds and by

Sportsman Shoes has been a leader in the shoe industry for more than thirty years. Sportsman manufactures and sells athletic shoes for all types of sports. The company has pursued a low-cost strategy in order to sustain their success. They sell a limited number of shoe designs and have held costs low through manufacturing efficiency and standardized operations. However, the past five years have been a struggle at Sportsman. The shoe market has seen a rise in the availability of low-cost imported shoes that has threatened Sportsman’s competitive position. As a result, company executives have decided it is time for a strategy shift.

Obviously, there is a big number of driving forces in the athletic footwear industry. Each of these driving forces has different impacts—some of them can have a more considerable effect than others on figuring out how much cross-company differences influence market shares and a number of units sold. The first line of most influential factors includes comparative prices, S/Q ratings, and a number of models offered among the footwear competitors. These three most important competitive forces affect customer decisions of which athletic footwear brand to choose. Furthermore, the decisions of customers whether to purchase one brand or another are also influenced by such forces as advertising, celebrity endorsements, the number of independent retail

Customers make purchasing decisions based on the information they have among products and the values of goods a company offers. For that reason, companies have to promote their products to increase products awareness. In order to achieve organizational goals, companies must understand the market’s needs to ensure the success of their businesses. Such information can be gained through research. The industry that will form the basis of this paper is Western Canadian Shoe Association. The three brands under study are Reebok, Adidas, and Nike.

With both of these instances, Sport’s Authority holds the competitive advantage because its offered the cheaper shoe with more color options for the consumer.

By the use of Porter’s Five Forces model to analysis the athletic footwear market around the world; our strategy is to cut the price of footwear in the Year 11 and 12, and to increase budget of advertisement and to bid celebrity endorsements in order to boost the sales volume in a competitive industry .

West Coast Fashions, Inc. a large business of men’s and women’s apparel decided to dispose of one of their segments; Mercury Athletic. John Liedtke, head of the business development for Active Gear, Inc. saw it has a possible opportunity for them to acquire it. The footwear industry is very competitive, with low growth and stable profit margins. AGI is very profitable but it is smaller than its competitors, which is becoming a disadvantage. Therefore, Liedtke believes that if they takeover Mercury will double AGI’s revenue, increase its leverage with contract manufactures and expand its presence with key retailers and distributions. Liedtke is evaluating the company in order to find out whether the future benefits justify or surpass the present value of the investment in Mercury.

Sports footwear and apparel expected will growth in future as customers cannot substitute these products. However, ASICS have to implement or produce with more high technology product to enhance

Tamara started her running shoe business in 1994 when she was 24. Tamara was a nationally ranked runner herself and hence she recognized a market for high quality running shoes specifically designed for serious runners. Tamara made good profits in the first six years of business from 1994 to 2000. Initially, she emphasized on Nike because it was well accepted and considered a top quality product.

The athletic shoe industry is made up of companies that produce footwear for athletic use. This is a strong industry and has been around for over 100 years. The athletic shoe industry is one of the fastest growing footwear industries and have top growing sales compared to other footwear industries (NDP Group, 2016). The key players that currently dominate the market are Nike, Adidas, and Puma (Kates & Bolduc, 2013). This paper will use the porter five forces, industry life cycle, and the key players to understand the industry. Over these years the athletic shoe industry has grown into a competitive market.

The report is about Nike, regarding the case study. The report elaborates on the aspects including buyer behaviour, brand image, consumer decision making, and marketing research techniques applicable to Nike. 3.0 Introduction Nike is the worlds number one sports shoe company. In the US Nike dominates 35% (source: see appendices) of the sports shoe market and its products are sold in more than 140