“Style-led, not sneakerhead,” is the name of the game at Journeys since Andy Gray took the helm of the Genesco-owned teen footwear retailer in January.
The new mantra, which was coined by the footwear industry veteran, serves as the basis of Journeys’ reinvention plan as it seeks to entice today’s youth with a focus on self-expression.
“It’s about, do these shoes allow consumers to express their own style, and are these the right silhouettes that they desire and will they serve the multiple occasions our customers are looking to wear these shoes to,” Gray said in an interview with FN last month. “That’s where the opportunity really sits in ‘style-led versus sneakerhead,’ because it is a different, growing part of the shoe market that isn’t necessarily built around sneakerheads and hype shoes. The other thing that style-led does is, it’s more diverse in terms of categories and brands since our customer tends to like multiple trends.”
The executive added that Journeys’ young female consumer is leading this idea of style-led purchasing. “No one else is serving this customer,” Gray maintained. “Everyone’s somewhere else offering consumers the same sneakers that the predominantly male consumer wants. While we still have a male consumer, we are offering him something different than other shoe stores in the mall.”
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Gray knows all about catering to sneakerheads. The exec came to Genesco from Foot Locker, where he served for over two decades in several senior leadership positions, including executive vice president and global president of Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Champs and Sidestep, as well as executive vice president and global chief commercial officer.
But the new leadership team at Journeys Group — which also includes another Foot Locker vet, Chris Santaella as EVP and chief merchandising officer; and Levi’s alum Stacy Doren as EVP and chief marketing officer — is working hard to transform the business.
And early results are encouraging, according to Genesco’s second-quarter earnings report which accounted for the all-important back-to- school season. Net sales from Journeys Group increased 4 percent to $298.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to $287.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2024. Net sales for the second quarter this year included approximately $19 million to $24 million due to the move of a strong week of back-to-school sales from the third quarter last year to the second quarter this year related to the 53-week calendar shift.
The company also noted in its 10-Q filing in September that it believes its teen customers’ preference has shifted away from primarily vulcanized product to a more diversified assortment. “We added significant fresh product across casual and athletic brands and styles during the quarter,” the company stated. “As a result, we saw an increase in store traffic that accelerated throughout the second quarter and drove a sequential improvement in Journeys Group comparable sales.”
NEW BRAND MIX
The core of Journeys’ reinvention is broken into two parts: product and store design. As for the former, the retailer has revamped its merchandise mix to include more must-have, trend-driven styles from brands like Adidas, New Balance, Ugg, Birkenstock, Dr. Martens, Crocs and more.
The starting point to this reimagined product mix, as Gray said, was subtraction. “We have to be very clear about where we’re going to win, and that’s where our clear leadership opportunity is,” he said. “We’ve cleaned up some of our non-footwear business and prioritized shoes. We now have an expanded and broadened assortment of footwear in our stores that we wouldn’t have had in the past to accommodate our consumer who likes to wear different kinds of categories and brands.”
Gray noted that Journeys consumers can now find athletic shoes, clogs, slip-ons, boots, loafers, retro soccer shoes, lifestyle running shoes and more. “I would say that the trend is really the diversification,” the exec said. “There are clear key items, and within each category, the key items are winning.”
Orchestrating this huge shift in brand mix hinged on forging relationships with vendors, which is one of Gray’s strong suits. “I’ve been working with many of these brands for decades, across multiple different geographies and continents, and I think that these relationships are absolutely a high priority for us,” he said. “We’ve got two constituents: our consumers and our vendors. They’re completely linked in that we need to be very sharp and relevant to our customer, which makes us very relevant to brand partners.”
And by broadening its assortment across categories, Gray believes the retailer has even more runway for growth. “[It] means we have some incremental growth opportunities because there are categories and brands that we’ll be stalking that we’ve been underserved with in the past,” he said.
REFRESHED STORE DESIGN
Along with this new brand offering, Journeys has introduced a modular store design to better highlight the footwear. Gray noted that fixtures, displays and marketing materials can be moved around with ease to feature a particular trend or brand at a moment’s notice.
“Our previous environment was very fixed,” he said. “You set it up and it was very difficult to move. If you wanted to highlight certain categories or brands, or if something popped on social media, you couldn’t really move. This new design is bright, clear. Product is clearly the hero. Our brands are heroes. But we haven’t forgotten our roots. We have kept the same color scheme as our older stores, and we’ve carried over our iconic pin culture and handprint logo near our cash wrap.”
As for rolling out the new design, the executive said it will take some time. As of press time, there were roughly 749 Journeys locations in the U.S. (In total, Journeys Group operates 1,039 stores, including 220 Journeys Kidz stores, 39 Journeys stores in Canada and 31 Little Burgundy stores in Canada.)
“There are a large number of stores teed up and we are doing them in tranches,” Gray noted. So far, 15 stores are slated to receive the new redesign.
From there, Gray said, the company will monitor the results from the new concept before planning its next steps. “We are really confident about this new design and the business metrics that back it up,” he said. “That this is going to be a big initiative. It’s a true strategic initiative and not just a quick update because we wanted a brighter store. This is something that is true to our new brand positioning and will deliver a great experience to our consumers.”
As for what’s left on his to-do list, Gray chuckled. “Complacency kills,” he said. “Once you stop moving forward, even if your plan is fantastic and delivering, you will fail. Consumers are going to change, market conditions are going to change, your team is going to change. We must keep moving.”
