Info about Footware
Footware industry in USA
Footwear is one of the most important articles of clothing. Everybody buys lots of shoes during their life. People in the US seem to like purchasing footwear a lot, since most of them buy approximately four pairs of shoes per year. There are lots of women in the world who would do anything for a beautiful pair of shoes and they also make a hobby out of it. The oldest footwear ever found was discovered in the US and it was a pair of sandals made from sagebrush bark. Scientists said that it was approximately 10,000 years old, but it is believed that footwear existed 500,000 years B.C.
The footwear industry is much appreciated all over the world and it manufactures a large variety of footwear, like boots, shoes, sandals, slippers, high-heeled shoes and others. Usually the materials used in making shoes are leather, rubber, plastic, textiles, jute, wood and metal.
Because manufacturing shoes involves hard work, footwear industry in USA fell foul of imports. An incredible amount of imported footwear is brought into the United States every year and export isn’t doing very well either. The problem in selling USA footwear is the big competition, which are countries like China, which sell mostly anything at very low costs. China is also the number one exporter, and the United States also import most of the footwear (68.3%) from it. The second country USA imports footwear from is Brazil (8.3%). Every year, the import rate grows substantially and the export rate declines. Because of this, lots of fabrics were closed and today, USA only holds 300 footwear fabrics compared to the year 1968, when there were over 1000.
Even the much known American brands like Nike, Timberland and Skechers USA don’t make the products in the United States, but they have other international fabrics. So the most American products aren’t really American. And that’s because of the high costs for labor work.
Even if the future seems grim for the footwear industry in the states, there are some people who think positive about it, because the productivity has increased a little in the last years and there’s a possibility that things could get a little better.
No matter what the current situation is, American footwear is much appreciated world wide because of the famous brands. Of course, the prices aren’t the lowest, but there still are people who are willing to pay a little more for good quality shoes.