The Athletes Foot hosted its franchise conference at SGMA Spring Market and took the opportunity to unveil a redesigned shop based on a modular design that encompasses four different categories: Performance Basics, Classic Athletics, Fusion Athletics and Street Athletics. Performance and Classic both consist of TAFs new branded apparel initiatives (viz. private label) that will consist of TAFtec in Performance and Track and Field 73 in Classics, while Fusion will target the action sports crowd, and Street will be geared towards urban. Franchisees will be able to custom design their stores based on the local consumer and will also be encouraged to stock local brands that might be hot in any given market.
In addition to the new store design, the retailer re-launched its logo focusing on re-branding the stores as TAF, rather than The Athletes Foot. The new-look stores will begin to pop up at retail in November with franchisees adopting the new plan when they are ready after that point. The new logo will debut mid-July, while the new private label apparel lines will hit shelves next January.
Sports Executive Weekly sat down with Robert DLoren, CEO of TAFs parent company, NexCen Brands, at the show and discussed the new plans for the retailer. DLoren sees a problem in sporting goods retail as companys try to market to too many different demographics with a single aesthetic. He anticipates using the companys franchise-based business model to allow the local operators the freedom necessary to market to whichever of the four aforementioned lifestyles dominate the local customer. However, thanks to the re-launch and re-branding, the franchisees are given autonomy under the overall TAF banner, which is expected to still create national and international unity across the chains many storefronts. DLoren also noted that should the modular re-launch prove successful, the company would likely add additional modules focused on additional lifestyles in the future.
