W222 -
Good question. Our sales reps are out showing and selling the FJ ICON product to our trade partners as we speak.
The issue we battled with Classics at retail was generally one or a combination of three things ...
1. Selection - just last year we had 42 styles of Classics Dry Premiere, Classics Tour and Classics Tour BOA. It is often times very difficult to pick 1, 2 or even a half dozen styles to represent the whole selection. Most often these shoes tended to be sold out of our catalog.
2. Sizing/ Availability - in much the same way that it was tough to get a feel for all the styles when you only bring in a few styles, Classics were available in sizes 6 to 16 and widths AAA to EEE ... hard to represent all sizes for people to try.
3. Price - Classics shoes retail price in the 08-09 catalog was almost $350, making it hard for all accounts to invest in the stock.
We have found that with a total of 19 styles and over 1,000,000 possibilities with MyJoys that FJ ICON is getting great initial placement in shops around the country. I expect distribution to be even wider with FJ ICON for a couple of additional reasons ...
1. New product - the excitement for FJ ICON is being felt around the country and I believe that many accounts see great upside in offering them as a stock product in their shops.
2. New price - the MSRP of FJ ICON is approximately $100 less than Classics, so it becomes a much more plausible purchase for both golf shop and consumer.
Hope this helps.
ML
PS - Since you mentioned you will be going the MyJoys route ... We just got a few pre-production FJ ICON shoes for the upcoming Deutsche Bank Championship. We will be showcasing MyJoys on the range for the players during the first few days of the event. Chris will post a few pictures later ... they are awesome!