Geronski - Thinking Creatively About Markets

Influences on the Market

Political, Legislative, Downstream and Upstream Players

Politic and Legislative influences.

As a lot of products are controlled by authorities before being released on the market ,for the shoes it’s the same thing, shoe makers have to comply with some laws and quality standards to ensure that the consumers get the best product.

Shoe makers in Europe or in France are regulated by european norms or French norms (NF).

Between 1997 and 2011 46 norms regarding the shoe making sector have been made. Here are a few examples of French norms :

NF EN 12771 – Resistance to tearing

NF EN 12770 – Resistance to abrasion

As french products are synonym of quality regarding shoes the Label «Origine France Garantie» has been created in 2011 for the french firms to be used as a token of quality for the consumers in France or in Europe.

European norms do the same thing as the french norms only it applies to the whole E.U.

They regulate everything in the footwear making process from the components to the parts of the shoe.

Here are a few examples of Euro norms :

CEN ISO/TR 20879:2007 regulates quality of uppers

CEN ISO/TR 20880:2007) regulates quality of the outsoles.

Thanks to the European union and due to the political stability of the Union , Government have been able to collaborate to eradicate the plague of counterfeiting. Counterfeiting has had a bad influence on the shoe market, making consumers less secure about what they are buying.

This is why governments have created laws that protect the creation, production and intellectual property rights such as the law of the 29 octobre 2007 which adds protection to the ones that posses intellectual properties to fight against counterfeiting.The customs of the countries of the E.U also got together to fight counterfeiting thanks to the second Naples convention which allows the customs of each country to collaborate and help each other.

downstream and upstream players

As the shoe industry is quite creative, materials are very important for the companies. different types of leather are often used on shoes, suede canvas or even plastic can be used to make shoes. This brings us to the downstream and upstream players of the shoe industry.

As the shoe makers transform the raw materials coming from the upstream players such as leather or rubber or even canvas downstream players are almost non existent in the shoe industry.the  downstream players are the companies that assemble the shoes.