How Nike became a luxury brand when no one was looking
Nike customers are willing to shell out and the brand is cashing in
For anyone who has recently bought Nike shoes or apparel, or walked into one of its latest stores, this won’t be news: Nike has slid upscale recently.
“It’s not like people aren’t spending money on high-priced items,” Business Insider retail analyst Cooper Smith told Complex in May. “It’s just that their preferences for lifestyle and their preferences for fashion are changing.”
Simply put: customers are willing to shell out more for what they prefer.
Nike is taking advantage of that mindset with its prices. Nike has a lot of different models of shoes, ranging from the relatively inexpensive Air Monarch (US$55) and going all the way up to the US$720 HyperAdapt 1.0 self-lacing sneakers.
But more telling is the focus of Nike’s advertising and innovation efforts, which, with few exceptions, is nearly always on the higher end of the price scale. For example, the Air Monarch is one of Nike’s best-selling shoes, and it frequently appears on lists of the brand’s top performers. But you wouldn’t know that by Nike’s telling of the story. The brand’s promotional efforts skew towards its newest and greatest inventions, as well as its more expensive offerings.
That goes for the newest Air Jordans and the most technologically advanced trainers, as well as the priciest apparel, including (but not limited to) its US$100 sweatpants. You know who else sells US$100 sweatpants? Upscale Ralph Lauren brand Club Monaco.