Over 1.5 million Australians shop for shoes each month. Customers of The Athlete’s Foot are the most satisfied

Some 1.59 million Australians shop at a shoe store in an average four-week period and The Athlete’s Foot had the highest proportion of satisfied customers in August. Its customer satisfaction rating of 84% put it ahead of Williams on 77% and Spend Less Shoes on 73%.

The results are from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey, an unmatched source of consumer insights derived from in-depth face-to-face interviews with over 50,000 Australians each year in their homes. 

The August win is The Athlete’s Foot’s fourth monthly Shoe Store Customer Satisfaction Award for 2019, bringing it even with Williams.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine observes that Williams came out on top for 2018 overall, but that might be difficult to replicate as 2019 draws to a close: “Even though they both have four monthly wins so far, the current 7% point margin The Athlete’s Foot has over Williams appears a tough obstacle.”

The Athlete’s Foot last took the annual customer satisfaction award in 2017, having also claimed it in 2015, Spendless Shoes won in 2016.

In a concerning trend for the industry, no brand has had an increase in customer satisfaction over the past year, but several have experienced troubling decreases. The final brand among Australia’s top four footwear retailers, Payless Shoes, suffered the most, with a 12% drop, and Williams was close behind, 11% down.

Who Shops Where?

Levine says Roy Morgan data shows: “Many similarities between customers of the leading shoe stores with a majority of customers at all four leading stores being women. At The Athlete’s Foot women represent a slim 54% majority and this increases for the other stores. When it comes to age differences, Gen X are the leading customers of the two top-performing stores, The Athlete’s Foot and Williams.”

Shoppers at both leading stores are often drawn from the Conventional Family Life (CFL) Roy Morgan Values Segment - ‘Good, solid and reliable products are important for CFL. Generally seeking value for money in their purchases, they select a mixture of branded and generic, or store brands for everyday use.’

The quintessential shopper at The Athlete’s Foot is likely to be from NSW with half of all shoppers at The Athlete’s Foot hailing from that State. Her children are 6-15 years old and she’s more likely than the average Australian to agree that ‘Credit enables me to buy the things that I want’ and ‘I spend more when my children come shopping with me’ and far more likely to play Basketball, Hockey and Combative sports.

The average Williams shopper has a young family with pre-school aged children under 5 years old and more likely than average Australians to enjoy buying magazines. She’s also more likely to agree ‘The Government is doing a good job running the country’, ‘I keep up-to-date with new ideas to improve my home’, ‘I find TV advertising interesting’ and ‘It only feels like a holiday if I leave Australia.’

Roy Morgan Shoe Store Customer Satisfaction Top 4 - August 2019 cf. August 2018

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, September 2017 – August 2018, n=14,985, September 2018 – August 2019, n= 14,005. Base: Australians 14+.

View the Customer Satisfaction - Shoe Stores Report.

Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards

The Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards highlight the winners but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Roy Morgan tracks customer satisfaction, engagement, loyalty, advocacy and NPS^® across a wide range of industries and brands. This data can be analysed by month for your brand and importantly your competitive set.

Need to know what is driving your customer satisfaction?

Check out the new Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Dashboard at https://www.customersatisfactionawards.com

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