Earlier this week, we reviewed subconscious consumer associations across different sneaker brands. Today, we’re going to take a look at consumers’ willingness to pay for sneakers across different profiles. To do so, we ran a price sensitivity meter (PMS / Van Westendorp) with 400 US consumers to determine consumer price perception and price thresholds towards a new pair of kicks. PSM charts are read by finding the intersection of the curves “too cheap” and “too expensive.”
Looking at gender, both male and female sneaker consumers believe that $50 is the optimal price point for sneakers as a category. However, when looking at the upper price limit (highest reasonable price) for all brands, men felt that the average number was $97 whereas women thought it was slightly lower at $89. The optimal price point for all of the brands we tracked was equivalent to the sneaker category at $50, except for Under Armour which had a slightly higher optimal price point of $55.
The breakdown of optimal price points by state tells a more interesting story. Residents of New Jersey have the highest price threshold for a new pair of sneakers coming in at $80. Coming in at the second-highest price threshold for sneakers is Kansas at $70 and Minnesota with the third-highest at $60. Arizona, Colorado, and Hawaii all have the lowest willingness to pay for a new pair of sneakers at just $25.
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