Is this the end of Crocs? Foam footwear company announces plans to close 75 to 100 stores and lay off 183 employees
Twelve years after Crocs - the company that makes those brightly colored foam clogs everyone loves to hate - was founded, the footwear is finally falling out of fashion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the shoemaker plans to close between 75 and 100 stores and lay off 183 employees in the coming years.
It's also set to cut back on the number of shoe styles it sells and focus on casual shoes in a bid to boost sales. The company expects the cutbacks to result in savings of $14million by 2015, reports the website.
In a while, crocodile! Crocs has announced plans to close between 75 and 100 stores and lay off 183 employees in the coming years
In October 2007, the company was at its peak with a $6billion market value. But on Monday, shares closed at $14.84, with Crocs valued at about $1.3billion.
Although often described as ugly and unfashionable, Crocs have enjoyed a long streak of success since the company was founded in 2002, with chef Mario Batali and President George W Bush spotted wearing them.
However, more often than not the shoes have made headlines because of the scathing things said about them.
Project Runway host Tim Gunn, for instance, told Time in 2008: 'The Croc - it looks like a plastic hoof. How can you take that seriously?'
Unsuccessful: The announcement that Crocs is downsizing comes a year after the company launched several new shoe styles including colorful wedges (pictured) and kitten heels
Flop: Crocs president Andrew Rees said the new diversity of styles was 'too big a reach for the brand'
The announcement that Crocs is downsizing comes almost exactly a year after the company launched several new shoe styles including colorful wedges, kitten heels, leopard print ballet flats and docksiders.
Designed under the new tagline 'A shoe for every you,' then-CEO John McCarvel said at the time that he expected the new styles to double sales of Crocs within five years.
But the move did not go according to plan. According to Crocs president Andrew Rees, the new diversity of styles was 'too big a reach for the brand'.
The upcoming layoffs will include 70 jobs at the Crocs headquarters in Niwot, Colorado.
Decline: In October 2007, the company was at its peak with a $6billion market value. But on Monday, shares closed at $14.84, with Crocs company valued at about $1.3billion
Perhaps the company will use the opportunity to focus more closely on the new market they have been trying to tap - Asia.
Last summer, Mr McCarvel said that one particularly profitable market is in China, where Crocs are seen less as a fashion faux pas, and more as 'an American brand similar to Starbucks', according to Businessweek.
And in Russia, another fast-growing market, shoppers tend to gravitate towards the brand's fur-lined boots, rather than the classic clog.
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