FDRA Membership Insight—Material Suppliers
Thank for for considering membership with FDRA. We have many raw material suppliers as members, and welcome you to join. FDRA is the footwear industry’s trade and business association. Over 80% of the entire footwear industry are members from fashion to athletic, flip flops to slippers — both small companies and global corporations, including the majority of domestic manufacturers, importers, brands, and retailers. View our full member list.
We help keep our material supplier members up-to-date on key industry trends and data as well as help them improve business relations with footwear brands.
Here are 3 ways we do that every day:
1. Business Information and Intelligence
Weekly updates, quick-to-read newsletters with deeper dive options, our podcast, and working groups give you important data, analysis, and insights on issues and trends. Newsletters include:
- Footwear Week-in-Review — weekly industry news
- Sourcing and Compliance Bulletin — import data by segment, footwear material prices, sourcing trends
- Footwear Retail Recap — shoe store sales data & total US sales data, Canadian shoe sales, footwear retail prices,
FDRA hosts the footwear industry’s popular podcast Shoe-In Show, a free radio program with guest interviews covering important topics, insights, best practices, and trends — join 1,000 industry executives and professionals listening in each week from your phone or desktop.
2. Solution-Focused Products
FDRA develops platforms and products that help members address their biggest daily challenges by providing key resources, reports, and tools that clarify regulations and laws. These products help material supplier members cut costs, improve productivity, and boost decision making.
- The Material Exchange — FDRA helped found the new digital material platform cutting development costs while helping improve brand to material supplier communication. This is a game changer.
- FootwearInnovation.com — news hub for all things footwear innovation: design, development, materials, production, retail
- Digital Product Safety Website — search footwear chemical and physical testing requirements by country
3. Networking and Training
FDRA holds over 30 events worldwide each year — webinars, workshops, summits, and seminars covering a range of footwear topics and issues. Our events feature industry leader and expert insight focusing on unpacking challenges and actionable takeaways, as well as networking time to connect with peers across the industry. Events include: FTDC, Footwear Executive Summit, Footwear Sourcing Summit