I was browsing my LinkedIn feed and I follow Alyssa Smith the VP DMM of Women’s and Kid’s Footwear at Finish Line. If you read the site you know I’ve had a lot to say about Finish Line. Here is one of those posts.
The share prices for Finish Line have been fluctuating since I wrote the above article. I even wrote a second article, but my reach is small and obviously no one read it.
The recent Nike alignment with Amazon and other factors have been instrumental in affecting Finish Line. Today though I saw a post on LinkedIn about a new location opening in a Macy’s and I realized that I had completely forgotten about the Macy’s and Finish Line alignment which began around 2013. It’s been four years since the launch of Finish Line in Macy’s and since then Macy’s has been in the process of closing 100 store locations. It’s a very similar issue for Nike and their alignment with JCP who is also closing over 60 stores.
I have to ask how many of you remember or even know that Finish Line has locations within Macy’s? I began to write a post under LinkedIn, but I very rarely write on the platform as I like to bring the discussion back here. This is what I was preparing to write:
Nice move with the new location. It looks great. As casual athletic continues to grow and performance isn’t as in demand, this creates a dope opportunity to hit the market where they are. In particular the growing women’s segment of athletic wear. The problem is foot traffic and how do you generate people towards the malls? As Macy’s is closing stores, the omnichannel experience hasn’t quite been figured out and destination locations like malls continue to suffer. Right now Macy’s isn’t doing any cross promotion of Finish Line on their website and Finish Line doesn’t even carry a Macy’s logo on their website. There isn’t any narrative focused on the latest women’s lines being created and available on either website and the blogs on Finish Line focus on kicks which limits the SEO as it relates to reaching women. Macy’s doesn’t do new digital content creation at all. They rely on the same static images on their site.
I realized that writing all of that was going to distract from the promotion of the new location and out of respect I didn’t write the response. I guess I’m writing this here right now because as an aspiring analyst and consultant it pains me to see a lack of connection between platforms. I didn’t remember that Finish Line was in Macy’s and if a new customer doesn’t have a Finish Line in their area, but they have a Macy’s, neither platform would tell them that they could pick up at Macy’s and that’s a problem.
