Record revenues at Skechers as it nears 1,000th store
Third quarter sales at Skechers rose 31% to $674.3 million, the highest quarterly revenues in the company’s 22-year history.
“With product and marketing initiatives that continue to resonate with our consumers worldwide, we achieved a 30.7 percent net sales increase over the third quarter last year. These results followed record first and second quarter revenues, resulting in a 29.5 percent net sales increase for the first nine months of 2014,” said David Weinberg, chief operating officer.
“The growth came across our three key distribution channels —we achieved net sales increases of 18.5 percent in our domestic wholesale business, 60.6 percent in our international wholesale business, and 25.0 percent in our Company-owned global retail business, which included an 11.0 percent increase in comparable net sales for the quarter on top of a double-digit increase last year in comparison to the third quarter in 2012.”
Robert Greenberg, Skechers chief executive officer, said success was in part due to its marketing strategies. "We are engaging with our wide demographic by creating marketing that speaks to Gen X, Y, Z as well as the baby boomers. We have achieved this by developing marketing campaigns as diverse as animated characters for kids, to legendary sports figures such as Pete Rose and Joe Namath for the older male, and Brooke Burke-Charvet for moms. Further, in the third quarter we signed multi-platinum recording artist Demi Lovato, who speaks to millions of teens every day through her social media platforms, and recently retired New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera to reach the younger male consumer.
“To broaden our reach with men around the globe, we recently announced the signing of the world’s most famous drummer, Ringo Starr, who we believe will have a positive impact on our men’s business in 2015.”
The company is planning to open 10 to 15 stores before the end of the year, in addition to the 22 that opened in the third quarter and the five that opened in October. It is also planning to open another 35 to 45 stores through franchise partners before the end of the year, which will bring it to the 1,000 store milestone.
It is also improving our efficiencies with the opening of a distribution facility in Chile in the third quarter and the completion of phase one of the automation of our European Distribution Centre in Belgium in the fourth quarter.
