Running Room Case Study
10/21/14
T/TH 9:30 AM

Present Strategy
The Running Room company has been a successful and profitable business since its inception, catering to both avid runners and more casual joggers by selling high end running shoes. Its owner, Raina Cisco, used her background as a nationally ranked runner to establish credibility as a running shoe authority, especially for higher end products. In order to maintain this image of quality, Cisco chose to primarily sell Nike shoes. The Nike brand is associated with performance in the minds of her customers, and she was able to make a $5-$7 premium per pair of Nike shoes. Despite this success, after about 10 years of steady growth, profits began to decline due primarily to large department chains entering the running shoe market, the loss of loyal, aging customers, and difficulty in balancing the needs of these loyal customers with those of the younger generation of serious runners. The Running Room’s current strategy to achieve new growth involves diversifying the product offerings to appeal to not only serious runners, but also more casual consumers. Cisco stocked stores with more fashionable sportswear items for her more cursory customers while attempting to appeal to the running community by offering custom-fit, high performance shoes. This strategy captures a large target market; however, it is ultimately unsuccessful as a growth model because it does not fully satisfy either consumer group. The serious runners are pleased with the custom shoe, but the sales team is poorly trained and unhelpful. The marketing for the shoe is poor due to a lack of a strong online presence, and the original wholesaler for the custom molds went out of business. Additionally, although fashion-conscious consumers are a growing market segment, Cisco’s business has no competitive advantage over and cannot compete with the