The opportunity was a basic one in the shoe industry: design a mass-marketed product giving buyers both status and the feel of a custom fit.
Reebok International Ltd. responded with The Pump, and in just 18 months the company has sold more than 4 million pairs of the high-priced, inflate-to-fit shoes. That sales figure would make the brand alone one of the largest athletic shoe companies in the United States.Reebok, based in Stoughton, introduced The Pump in November 1989, featuring chambers inflated by pressing a spot on the tongue of the shoe. The company now uses the technology in shoes for 30 activities, from basketball to aerobics to golf.
Observers praise the technology but say many customers, particularly teenagers, have been won over by the shoe's fashionable image, despite - or maybe because of - suggested retail prices of $85 to $130.
"It's a cool shoe to have," said Elizabeth Armstrong, a consumer analyst with Forstmann-Leff Associates Inc. in New York. "A lot of the things that sell sneakers are bells and whistles. The features catch people's fancies."
Michael Murdoch, manager of an Athlete's Foot store in downtown Boston, said many customers don't seem to care about The Pump's technological features.
"They don't want to hear the reasons why it's good for the foot," Murdoch said. "All they're interested in is, `It's The Pump. Give it to me.' "
By contrast, Murdoch said, customers seeking high performance more often choose shoes made by Nike Inc. - the nation's top-selling brand.
Nike last year captured 28 percent of the $5.5 billion branded athletic footwear market in the United States, according to Sporting Goods Intelligence, an industry newsletter. Reebok had a 20.7 percent share.
According to Reebok, retail sales for The Pump have surpassed $500 million since its introduction. Overall, the Reebok brand represented $1.17 billion worth of sales in the United States in the company's latest fiscal year.
Reebok Chairman Paul Fireman has credited The Pump with giving a kick to the company's sales, which rose 18 percent last year.
Mike Shea, an analyst with Black & Co. in Portland, Ore., said many retailers around the country indicate that The Pump "has made a dent in Nike's stronghold. Not like it's killing them, but it's making an impact."
Sporting Goods Intelligence publisher John Horan said the high-priced segment has been performing well despite the recession, which has slowed sales for mid-priced athletic shoes.
The reason is simple: Young shoppers don't always pay attention to economics.
"Kids get it into their heads that there's shoes they just have to have," Horan said. "They'll bug their parents, they'll go out and cut grass to get the money."
Reebok officials are aware of the status allure the expensive shoes carry with youths.
"If you're a young kid, and you don't have ability to buy a car to drive, the only fashion statement they can make is with their clothes," said John Morgan, Ree-bok's senior marketing director.
Nike, based in Beaverton, Ore., misfired when it tried to introduce a similar pump-fit shoe around the same time Reebok was unveiling its line. The problem with Nike's product was it used a pump mechanism separate from the shoe, which proved to be inconvenient.
Nike redesigned the product so the mechanism was incorporated into the shoe, as is Reebok's.
But Nike spokesman Keith Peters said his company isn't giving the pump-fit the same kind of marketing splash Reebok has, and he played down the importance of the shoe's fit.
Peters said the inflatable shoe is what Reebok is "hanging their hat on right now and it's producing good sales for them. But we don't feel that's necessarily the best custom fit technology" for all types of sport shoes.