FDRA Membership Insight

How FDRA Drives Value to Your Bottom Line

Thank you for considering membership with FDRA, the footwear industry’s trade and business association. We support our members throughout their entire business, from making shoes (design, development, and production) to importing shoes (customs rulings, classifications, and lowering duty costs) to selling shoes (retail data and analysis, and consumer trends). That is why over 95% 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.

Our job is to make your job easier. Here are 5 ways we do that for our members everyday:

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
FDRA Customs Report — new footwear customs rulings and updates
Sourcing and Compliance Bulletin — import data by segment (sample), footwear material prices (sample), sourcing trends
IP Digest — new footwear designs and patents each month
Footwear Retail Recap — shoe store sales data & total US sales data, Canadian shoe sales, footwear retail prices, employment updates
Member Weekly Check-in Call

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.

FDRA’s working groups provide key updates and allow professionals to discuss challenges and hear solutions from their peers. These groups focus on Customs & Trade, Sourcing and Compliance, Innovation, Product Safety, and Government Relations. At least once a quarter, our membership is invited to join a one hour call or a special meeting to get critical updates impacting their business. FDRA learns from the challenges discussed and works to develop solutions to help companies.

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 members cut costs, improve productivity, and boost decision making.

FootwearCustoms.com — customs definitions, rulings, a digital IFI, free sample reviews
The Material Exchange — digital material platform cutting design and development costs while increasing speed-to-market
FootwearInnovation.com — news hub for all things footwear innovation: design, development, materials, production, retail
Shoeconomy — The economics of the footwear industry from sales data to shoe jobs
Digital Product Safety Website — search footwear chemical and physical testing requirements by country
The Footwear Sourcing and Compliance Center — footwear sourcing data, material costs, compliance training, trends
Domestic Footwear Manufacturing Center — domestic manufacturing stats, reports, domestic producers’ stories

3. Consultations and Support Services

Think of us as specialized footwear consultants, free as part of your membership. Consider FDRA part of your team.

Our members call or email us for help with questions from customs classifications to product safety to factory compliance to import or labeling questions to retail data and trends and everything in between — we are here for you. Our goal is to get you answers you need to make key business decisions within the same business day.

If you don’t know where to turn, call us at 202-737-5660 or email us at apolk@fdra.org or mpriest@fdra.org — we also make visits to members’ offices, if needed, to troubleshoot issues and challenges.

4. 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:

5. Cost Savings — Fighting to Eliminate Footwear Duties

FDRA is the footwear industry’s voice in Washington, DC. We work to educate US officials and Congress on how regulations and tax policy impact our industry and our consumers. Everyday we fight unfair burdens that hinder growth and innovation.

As the industry’s leading policy development and advocate for the full elimination of footwear tariffs and global barriers, we push a variety of different bills and initiatives to help our members lower their duty bills.

FDRA also provides key information and advice on adaptation regarding upcoming regulation changes impacting our members. For example, view the latest Footwear & Politics Update.

Dive deeper into how FDRA helps every department at your company