Steve Madden Sales Take A Hit This Quarter Despite Its Collaboration With Iggy Azalea
Although Steve Madden has been making plenty of moves to grow its business like acquiring footwear brand Dolce Vita in August and booking celebrity collaborations, sales for the third quarter of the year, which wrapped up on September 30, were "disappointing," executives said. Net sales maxed out at $392 million, down from $394.8 million last year.
According to Fashionista, Steve Madden announced that it had tapped Fancy singer, Iggy Azalea, to collaborate on a footwear range, the day after the VMAs. Madden is known to have collaborated with celebrities in the past like Keyshia Cole, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, as well as Chiara Ferragni of The Blonde Salad.
"The idea for a collaboration came about a few months ago when Iggy performed in Brooklyn as part of our Madden Music series," a spokesperson for Madden said. "She has an extremely gifted eye for fashion, and we're working on the collection now."
Unfortunately, sales declined over the course of the quarter, with August and September faring worse than July. Revenue from Steve Madden's retail channel flatlined, at $48.7 million versus $48.9 million at the same time last year, while wholesale came in at $343.3 million relative to 2013's $345.9 million. Due to the difficult fall, company execs said that spring wholesale orders aren't likely to be "gangbusters."
Although no specific geographic region is performing significantly worse than another, (California is relatively better than the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, but none are what they "would consider satisfactory") certain products have been doing significantly worse than others. For example, tall shaft boots aren't selling as well as expected, nor are dress shoes. Overall, the women's category is giving the company the most trouble right now.
Sneakers are doing well at the moment and will likely continue to perform well in the spring. Steve Madden execs seemed optimistic about spring in general, noting that there have been "encouraging signs that the season will deliver some fresh trends to the footwear industry."
Check out some shoes below from Steve Madden's fall collection!