The U.S. presidential election made its way into several remarks in footwear earnings calls this week.
Overall, executives discussed how Donald Trump‘s win over Kamala Harris might impact tariff policy, which in turn, would impact an industry that is heavily reliant on imports from foreign countries. (99 percent of the shoes sold in the United States are imported from primarily China, Vietnam and Indonesia.) Donald Trump’s proposed tariff plans include a 10 to 20 percent tariff on imports from all foreign countries and an additional 60 to 100 percent tariff on imports specifically from China.
Luckily for the shoe industry, many companies have already diversified their sourcing away from vulnerable regions like China in the wake of the supply chain meltdown in 2021. So executives were overall confident in their ability to manage another era of change, if necessary.
In a call with analysts on Thursday, Under Armour chief financial officer David Bergman said that the athletic company is on alert for potential tariff implications but does not expect any “sizable impacts.”
“There could be some U.S. duty implications that could impact our cost of goods sold and gross margin, and a little bit with income tax expense,” Bergman said. “But it’s something that we were prepared to manage pretty well before. We’ll continue to manage it as best we can going forward.”
At Wolverine Worldwide, which owns the Merrell, Saucony and Sweaty Betty brands, president and chief executive officer Chris Hufnagel said the company had worked hard to diversify its footwear sourcing outside of China. Exposure in the region went from about 40 percent in 2019 to the mid-teens in 2024, Hufnagel said, adding that within its sourcing ecosystem, Wolverine has the ability to “dual source” if needed.
“Other important regions are Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia — important pieces as the new realities are there,” Hufnagel said. “And as we hear more, we’ll obviously contemplate things that we need to go do to make sure we can protect and seek to grow the business.”
Steve Madden also called out its longstanding efforts to diversify its supply chain from China. Ed Rosenfeld, chief executive officer of the New York-based company, told analysts on a conference call Thursday that Madden — which reported solid third-quarter earnings — had been preparing for a “potential scenario in which we would have to move goods out of China more quickly.”
Overall, about two-thirds of Madden’s business is derived from imports, with about 70 percent of those imports sourced from China. Rosenfeld said the company has been working hard to develop production capabilities in Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil with an overall goal to reduce the percentage of goods produced in China by 40 to 45 percent.
“If we’re able to achieve that, a year from today we would be looking at just over a quarter of the business subject to tariffs,” Rosenfeld said.
The New York-based Tapestry also addressed the tariff news in a call with analysts this week. Chief financial officer and chief operating officer Scott Roe said the company, which owns Kate Spade, Coach and Stuart Weitzman, has often been required to adapt its supply chain due to port strikes, freight issues and changing tariff rules in the past.
“We’re pretty well versed in managing through this,” Roe said. “We’ll see what comes in terms of specific tariffs and other legislation that may come and we’re monitoring that closely and certainly prepared to react.”
Roe also noted that Tapestry has less than 10 percent of its overall sourcing based in China.
“So from an exposure standpoint, at least as it relates to China, that’s really on a relative basis not a big concern,” he said.
Outside of tariffs, some experts believe that Trump’s win, which prompted a market rally, will have a positive impact on consumer confidence and holiday spending this year.
“Coming off the election, I think that we’re going to have a much better holiday season this year than we did last year. I think the economy is on the right foot, people are normalized to the pricing, wages are typically up and employment is pretty high,” Andy Polk, senior vice president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, told FN in an interview. “You’ve got all these [positive] economic indicators.”
