Foot Locker is investing $12.5 million in children’s apparel company Rockets of Awesome.
CNBC has taken the time to write a smart post on the investment of Foot Locker into youth subscription service Rockets of Awesome. Take a moment to click through and then take a moment to recognize that over the last four years I’ve written probably more than any site about the importance of private label and why the disruption of the sneaker industry by brands is the most important problem to hit the athletic retail market. In my recent book I explained that this disruption by brands was a war that retail outlets had to plan for and react to with their own tactics.
In the post on CNBC they mention the recent Super Heroic investment in an inaccurate way that completely overlooks the connection to Rockets, “This follows Foot Locker’s $100 million investment in online sneaker resell platform Goat Group, along with investments in lifestyle brand Super Heroic, activewear brand Carbon38 and footwear design academy Pensole.”
Why Foot Locker’s Investment In Super Heroic Is a Blueprint Move
While Super Heroic is a lifestyle brand technically, at the core it’s a sneaker company designed around healthy lifestyles for kids. Foot Locker is functioning like Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank. When Mr. Wonderful finds an investment he looks at how it can be utilized in platforms he has already invested into. Rockets is a monthly delivery system for youth apparel and in that basket their aren’t any shoe options. While in a previous article I stated that Super Heroic could be implemented into retail, that was going to be hard to do since Nike dominates the walls inside of Foot Locker and most people don’t realize that Nike took a shot at Super Heroic last year:
Nike’s ‘Future Series’ for Young Athletes Reminds Me of Super Heroic and That’s Not Good
What better way for Foot Locker to deliver footwear than with a proven subscription based service for the busiest people in the world. CNBC also fails to address that brands are utilizing DTC to grow and many of them have already created their own subscription services which continue to remove eyes from retail websites and foot traffic from stores. In the last two years adidas has launched a subscription service and Under Armour has a subscription service. While neither service is catering to kids, the natural progression is for brands to do so.
Just as Foot Locker cut off their biggest threat in ecommerce by investing in GOAT, Foot Locker just got ahead of the brands by investing in a subscription service for those customers who aren’t cash based and don’t have the time to visit stores. The investment into Rockets is a chess move that allows for the store to cover all of their bases. It’s another super smart investment by the Stripes.
ArmourBox: A Personalized Subscription Box Service by Under Armour
Recap: Avenue A | adidas – Has Adidas Disrupted the Women’s Athletic Apparel Market?
