Shoes.com website trades hands again, this time to DSW owner

Dive Quick:

• DSW’s mum or dad, Designer Manufacturers, has obtained the Footwear.com area, earning the enterprise the next (known) acquirer of the area in fewer than two a long time soon after Walmart sold it in 2020.
• A Designer Models spokesperson reported in an emailed statement that the enterprise acquired the site and intellectual home assets for an undisclosed cost as a “vital strategic retail area.” 
• A information on the Sneakers.com web page tells readers that “now we’re a aspect of dsw.com” with a hyperlink to DSW’s e-commerce retail outlet. Footwear Information formerly noted on the Sneakers.com acquisition.

Dive Perception:

The Footwear.com name has experienced a very long and tangled history. Started in 1999, Sneakers.com was acquired by Brown Shoe Co (which went on to turn into footwear wholesaler and retailer Caleres) in 2000.

In 2014, Brown Shoe Co. bought the e-commerce internet site to Canadian e-commerce company ShoeMe. Less than Brown Shoe, profits at Shoes.com had been declining for yrs prior to the sale. 

Shoes.com went bankrupt in 2017. Later that year, Walmart picked up the Footwear.com domain identify and IP property for $9 million, sending the traffic to its ShoeBuy e-commerce retail store, which Walmart obtained in 2017 by means of its now-defunct Jet subsidiary. (DSW picked up Shoe.com’s ShoeMe.ca area in the personal bankruptcy aftermath, in accordance to trade media stories at the time.)

As Walmart revamped and repositioned its digital business, the retail large marketed off Shoes.com for an undisclosed sum to private equity business CriticalPoint Funds, which at the time owned footwear retailer JackRabbit.

Past January, CriticalPoint declared that Footwear.com was formally portion of its Operating Specialty Team, which also owned other companies together with JackRabbit. The organization mentioned at the time that the blend of Footwear.com and JackRabbit would generate a “market-main, omni-channel specialty footwear platform with a huge variety of branded footwear.” Past yr, CriticalPoint bought JackRabbit to functioning retail store franchisor Fleet Feet.

And now Shoes.com resides beneath Designer Makes and its DSW small business, wherever the firm has focused on e-commerce advancement. In March, CEO Roger Rawlins informed analysts that demand for DSW’s digital company strike $1 billion for the to start with time.

“The higher-site visitors Footwear.com domain furthers Designer Brands’ very long-vary tactic to increase its footprint digitally and strategically place and distribute Designer Brands’ Owned Brand names as properly as footwear from best Nationwide Brand partners,” the Designer Brand names spokesperson explained. 

No running belongings were element of the deal for Sneakers.com. Designer Brands did not title the seller of the IP and area title.