FDRA represents 95% of the footwear industry, working from footwear design through to retail to help the industry evolve and advocate for policies that grow the sector. AlixPartners advises footwear manufacturers and retailers on digital-first retail strategies across the value chain. We partnered to research current consumer trends; the results will help inform footwear companies on how to meet the consumer where they are in 2026.
For all the consumer anxiety in 2025 over tariff-related price hikes, footwear companies were “surgical” about where they raised prices last year.
The latent price pressures being felt by retailers may exact more of a pinch in 2026. The Spring 2026 U.S. Consumer Footwear Survey, conducted by AlixPartners in partnership with FDRA, finds widespread sticker shock and pessimism over the anticipated state of the economy in six months’ time, especially among older respondents, with consumers retreating to needs-based spending and working to make each purchase go further.
Casuals are the most resilient category, with a projected 1% net decline in purchase intent, though there is a semantic difference between the consumer idea of casual and that of the industry. Among respondents who said they would be spending less on shoes, the top reason was that they were buying shoes that can work for multiple occasions—cited by more than a third. Anything becomes casual when you wear it day-in, day-out.
This is the footwear-specific expression of retail's broader challenge: price increases can no longer mask declining sales volumes.
We look at the top reasons consumers are spending more as well as the top reasons they’re spending less, and analyze projected spending across categories and channels. Get all the data in the report.
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