No words to even describe this, I would just qualify this as self-inflicted brand suicide
> Nike wants to flood retail partners with inventory, lock in guaranteed cashflow
> Scarcity model helped Jordan brand preserve prestige, no more appeal as almost all new Jordan retro sneaker releases are widely accessible
> Models sit on shelves, retail partners and boutiques end up cashflow negative with Nike invoices hitting weekly
> Jordan brand previously backed up releases with heavy marketing and activation events, effort bar seems so fkn low these days that most semi-interested sneaker consumers probably weren’t even aware of the “banned” lows releasing this past week
What an insult to the investors and retail partners who have continuously placed their trust in Nike’s supply chain…
The underlying issue is and has always been very clear: Nike has lost control of its own supply chain
• cargo theft still a prevalent issue with early Jordan retros hitting the market weeks early at an effective cost basis of $0, allowing sellers who have no direct connection to the Nike supply chain to undercut direct Nike partners
• international retailers in overstocked and highly corrupted regions exporting releases by the thousands of units into the U.S. market, the most prized and profitable region for Nike, jeopardizing any supply chain integrity that U.S. retailers once benefited from
> U.S. Nike retailers have lost so much confidence in Nike sneaker launches that they rush to secondary market platforms to quickly take any profit they can before the market turns to absolute shit
Let me put it clearly, NIKE RETAILERS are selling more on StockX and GOAT than they are on their own retail sales channels….
The alarm bells should’ve rang a while ago, but no one at Nike seems to be concerned apparently
Nike supply chain management = 0/10
Weird week for Nike:
Worst stock in over a decade.
Makes a bold ad at Boston Marathon and backtracks on it.
Congratulates Adidas athlete on breaking the 2hr marathon, something Nike obsessed over.
Officially names shoe the Red October, after Kanye West coined the name.
@icemancapital Why would gross margins expand if they are outsourcing logistics and selling more through retailers vs direct (historically is a higher margin channel)?
THIS: “The Nike comparison is extra interesting when you consider not as many questions about current sell-out vs. sell-in at Adidas given that their DTC business outperformed wholesale”
I have never understood how people blame Nike’s issues on DTC when adidas has crushed.
$ADIDAS: Three Is A Magic Number
All those $NKE BTFD FinX Furus gonna hate this one...
Of the four sports that Adidas is primarily focused on, we can see near term success in three of them: it’s just basketball that’s going to take some time. Isn’t that fitting for a brand known for its three stripes? Football (soccer) is the key and there is no unnecessary roughness required to achieve a strategic win here as the Adidas brand is about to be reintroduced to an American consumer in a way it hasn’t in decades at the 2026 World Cup. Nike is almost certain to win the revenue battle from that event but while they count all their money, both American consumers and the merchants of Dick’s Sporting Goods will have first-hand experience with the “new” Adidas that has been over two years in the making. This compares to Nike, who continues to reorganize its business with the latest C-suite restructuring in December that is in addition to major changes back in September. The Nike comparison is extra interesting when you consider not as many questions about current sell-out vs. sell-in at Adidas given that their DTC business outperformed wholesale last quarter…
We spend most of this note digging into the football business as we see it as a potential trojan horse into the American consumer. Adidas might be the best global running brand in 2025, but Americans wouldn’t know that given how limited distribution there is in the country (particularly within the specialty channel). Growth in training is almost always simply a derivative of other sports. The one country where the Adidas brand just doesn’t seem to work in a meaningful way is the United States – if anything illustrates that best it’s Dick’s still provides Under Armour 3-4x the space in every store (Adidas space is often akin to the more seasonal The North Face)…
We don’t dig into basketball in this note (stay tuned) but simply must recognize that the significant variance in current brand heat in China is likely highly favorable to Adidas’ long-term efforts to establish itself in a category that is supposed to be “owned” by Nike. Increasingly the sport’s popularity has evolved beyond the borders of the U.S. and that in itself is something to keep in mind when thinking about the long-term. Highly doubt the company would pay up for the Curry brand but seems Adidas is the only remaining player outside of Nike where it could have long term legs ala Jordan if Steph decided to go in that direction…
We view marketing spend itself as not as important as the athletes themselves performing on the highest stage in the best possible product. Nike recently put on a clinic in what not to do with the NYC Marathon where they saturated the entire city with “Nike Run” advertising (even painted the entire Staten Island Ferry) only to have none of their athletes make the podium. Meanwhile Adidas did minimal advertising itself and swept the men’s podium while also placing in women’s with innovative product that is widely considered some of the best running shoes of 2025. Nobody likely remembers the Nike advertising for that week, but the Adidas win continues to be widely discussed to this day…
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$ADDYY