Who Pays When Prices Climb
Families are facing higher prices for children’s shoes as the school year approaches, and the squeeze is forcing parents to make harder choices while retailers and trade groups talk up “deals” and “choiceful” shopping. Jonah Seidenberg, a 12-year-old from the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, wanted Nike Minds, a futuristic-looking sneaker that claims to improve concentration by stimulating the soles of the feet. On a recent Saturday, he and his mother searched StockX and other sites for a discount but came up empty. They eventually found the last available pair in his size on Dick’s Sporting Goods’ website for the full price of $145 and bought it anyway.
“It was 10:30 at night and we finally threw in the towel,” said Lisa Seidenberg, a publicist. “I felt it looked like a Tesla in a shoe, but something sparked for him.” The price was more than she and her husband had budgeted, so Jonah chipped in $40 of his own money. That’s the real arithmetic here. A child’s shoe becomes a family budget crisis, and the bill lands where it always does: on people already trying to stretch every dollar.
The Cost of Growing Feet
As summer fades, parents and children are spending more time looking for deals or buying fewer pairs, according to analysts and retailers. Some parents are saying no to $150 soccer cleats, Adidas Sambas reimagined as Mary Janes, or the $300 Kobe Bryant kicks Jonah initially hoped to get. Shoe prices rose by 3.2% in the first half of the year, putting full-year prices on pace to increase at the fastest pace in 34 years aside from the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, according to the Footwear Distributors and Retailers Association.
Elizabeth Powers, a 37-year-old San Francisco real estate agent who has two children, ages 7 and 11, said it’s “frustrating” to see shoe prices continue to climb while she believes quality has declined. “Their feet grow so fast as it is,” she said. “It’s incredibly frustrating to have to replace shoes before they’ve grown out of them due to poor quality.” Powers said she’s sticking to spending a couple hundred dollars for each child for the year, including for shoes, and is looking for DSW and Zappos coupons while buying more versatile shoes.
Priya Parthasarathy, partner of the U.S. Foot & Ankle Specialists in Silver Spring, Maryland, and national spokesperson for the trade group American Podiatric Medical Association, said buying kids’ shoes can be trickier than the rest of their outfits because shoes require an exact fit for growing feet. She said kids ages 7 to 10 outgrow footwear every six to nine months, and teens typically outgrow them every year. The market knows this. The parents do too. One side sets the prices; the other side keeps replacing what the system makes temporary.
What the Market Calls Normal
The article said footwear prices don’t look like they’ll level off anytime soon because of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and the Iran war, which is driving up petroleum-derived products like shoes, according to the footwear trade group. That’s the apparatus at work: policy decisions and war costs rolling downhill until they land in the school-year budget of ordinary families.
Casey Lewis, a trend analyst in New York, said kids feel pressure to wear the right sneaker brands more than with other types of clothing. “I think shoes are just so immediately identifiable as like, ‘I’m in the crowd,’” she said. Jonah Seidenberg said he and his mother turn to thrift stores for certain clothing brands like Hollister and Polo Ralph Lauren to save money so they can invest more in his shoes. “You can wear any kind of clothing and it would be fine, as long as it’s the right size,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what brand it is. But shoes could be ... high-tops, low-tops. Whatever the person likes better is what will make them feel confident.” He said the wrong shoes, or ones that are tattered or out of style, can invite bullying.
Almi Guajardo Abeyta, the school superintendent in Chelsea, Massachusetts, said worn-out, ill-fitting shoes remain one of the most visible signs of childhood poverty. She said families in her community are finding it harder than ever to make ends meet, and she’s seen students fixing their shoes with duct tape. “If you have to make a decision of feeding your family or a pair of shoes, you’re going to feed your family,” Abeyta said. That’s the hierarchy in plain sight. Children show up in classrooms with duct-taped shoes while the people setting prices and policy keep moving numbers around.
Coupons, Discounts, and the Same Old Squeeze
Lucila Castillo, a food service worker in the Boston suburb, said she is struggling to afford shoes and other back-to-school items for her 14-year-old daughter and her 19-year-old daughter, who is starting community college. Castillo, who moved to the U.S. from Nicaragua with her family more than four years ago, said she earns about $700 a week and is the family’s primary breadwinner. After paying $2,200 a month in rent and utilities, she said about $600 remains for other expenses for her husband and daughters. When her younger daughter asked for Sambas or a new pair of soccer cleats, Castillo said no. “We have to pay the rent,” she said.
Beth Goldstein, an industry adviser for footwear and accessories at the market research firm Circana, said shoppers are being more selective. From January through June, adult footwear sales rose by 1% from the same period a year earlier, while the number of pairs sold fell by 7% and the average sale price rose by 8%, according to Circana. Children’s footwear sales slipped by 3%, with pairs sold dropping by 9% and average sale price rising by 7%. Goldstein said children’s footwear sales should be stable because kids grow out of shoes faster than adults, but the data shows parents are buying fewer pairs.
Retailers including Target and JCPenney are offering back-to-school deals, including on shoes. Michelle Wlazlo, JCPenney’s brand chief executive officer, said, “I can’t say the gas price is impacting this sale or that thing, but you just feel it,” and added, “And so they’re being choiceful.” She said the sneakerina, a sneaker and ballet slipper combo, is resonating with certain shoppers looking for footwear that can be worn for different occasions.
Lisa Will, who founded and runs Vancouver, British Columbia-based children’s outdoor footwear company Stonz Shoes, said customers are gravitating toward neutral-colored shoes that can be passed down to younger siblings. She said versatile styles, such as insulated rain boots that can double as snow boots, are also faring well. Secondhand retailers like Goodwill and ThredUp also report more interest from customers wanting to buy gently worn back-to-school shoes.
Kristen Brophy, ThredUp’s senior vice president and head of marketing, said children’s footwear is a small but fast-growing part of the company’s business as shoppers look for steep discounts while searching for hot shoe styles that were discontinued. She said Adidas is among the most popular sneaker brands for children. “We do see the back-to-school trend definitely happening on ThredUp,” Brophy said. The secondhand market gets to look like a workaround, but it’s really just families scavenging for relief in a system that keeps making basics more expensive.
AP Business Writer Adriana Morga contributed to the report.