Foot in the Door

Footstar Inc., the West Nyack, N.Y.-based footwear retailer, announced that it has reached an agreement with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.) to supply Thom McAn family footwear for up to 1500 Wal-Mart stores, including the original 300 stores that began selling Thom McAn in October 2002.

Footstar will supply women's shoes for 1500 stores, men's for 1000 stores and kids' shoes for 400 stores. It said it expects the shoes to be in 700 Wal-Mart stores by March and in other stores by midsummer, in time for the back-to-school selling season.

“We are very excited about this opportunity to expand the distribution of Thom McAn, one of the fastest-growing value footwear brands in America today,” says Mickey Robinson, chairman and ceo of Footstar. “This is an important strategic step for us as we continue to move forward to reach new customers with Footstar's own high-quality brands.”

Footstar offers an assortment of branded athletic footwear and apparel through its two athletic concepts, Footaction and Just For Feet. It also offers discount and family footwear through licensed footwear departments operated by Meldisco, including 1832 in Kmart stores. As of December 28, 2002, the company operated 459 Footaction stores in 41 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, 95 Just For Feet superstores located predominantly in the Southern half of the country and 5532 Meldisco licensed footwear and 20 Shoe Zone stores. Footstar also distributes its own Thom McAn brand of leather footwear through Kmart, Wal-Mart and Shoe Zone stores.