The End of END Footwear

A few days ago we learnt sad news about one of the outstanding brands in the trail running footwear arena. LaCrosse Footwear announced it has discontinued the END (Environmentally Neutral Design) Footwear brand as a standalone outdoor and running brand. The company plans to “leverage the END platform of innovative lightweight designs into the LaCrosse and Danner product lines and distribution channels for Fall 2010.” Maybe, or maybe not, but what it’s clear is that there won’t be no more END trail shoes shipping to stores.

The Wisconsin-based footwear giant purchased the brand’s footwear assets in May for $500,000 with the intention of growing the brand and expanding its distribution. Barely two weeks after they had been showing their line-up for 2010 at the Outdoor Retailer, the running footwear company will stop functionning as a separate brand, only a year after they started shipping out shoes.

After SNEWS, seems the reason for that decision is ” A poor economy, quality control issues and other cost concerns”. I don’t get to understand what is the diference between now and three months earlier, but I’m no business expert. What I know is that I had read only good things about END. And there is never enough good things in our trail lives.