Company today
In October 2010, Famous Footwear consisted of 1,126 retail stores in the United States, including 947 Famous Footwear stores and 179 thematically structured outlet stores. Some 26 new stores were launched or were planned to open in 2010. The company indicated a long-term desire to add another 400 to 500 stores.[4] The company indicated that it had plans to close 126 underperforming stores by the end of 2012, approximately matched by planned openings of additional new locations.[6]
Famous opened five athletic driven stores named "Mind Body Sole" intending to show manufacturers like Nike, Reebok, Brooks, Asics, Adidas and Mizuno that it had the capability to sell these items through commitment to training and customer service. Once these small sales stores were unable to move certain high dollar items, the company would be able to move them into the outlet stores under the assumption of them being clear outs being shifted into the outlets. What happened, though, was that these items were moved into the outlets and the price was placed at or near retail price, regardless of age or the business trend of the price of such items.
In 2010, Famous claimed to be dealing with some 800 brands as a company. In that year about 18 percent of the chain's business involved the brands of Famous' parent corporation, Brown Shoe Company (in May 2015 named Caleres), which include Naturalizer, Dr. Scholl's, Franco Sarto, Sam Edelman and the chain's private label, Connie.[7][8]
In November 2010, Famous Footwear planned to launch a new five-store test of an outlet concept called "Mind Body Soul", concentrating on footwear related to the toning and fitness category.[4] Test stores would average 2000 sqft and would initially be launched in Denver, Tulsa, Orlando and Palm Beach, Florida, and Burlington, Massachusetts.[6]
