Jan 25, 2022

Why We Have to Raise Prices

We set out to make shoes differently from everyone in the industry. When you put on a pair of Enda shoes, you get to experience the thrill of knowing you’re wearing Kenyan made running shoes. Through your purchase, you’ve helped create jobs and drive development in the Home of Champions.

This means we have to worry about a portion of the supply chain that other brands don’t: shipping from Kenya to the world.

Around the world, logistics challenges have driven up costs and stretched out shipping timelines for everyone. But the problem is especially being felt in Africa, where prices have risen faster and shipping availability has been more constrained than anywhere else.

The Washington Post told the story of African supply disruptions more eloquently than we could. Here is a key excerpt from their story:

“With U.S. retailers willing to pay almost any price to get their goods to American shores in time for the holidays, ocean carriers have redeployed container ships from the developing world to the more lucrative Asia-to-United States trade lanes, where rates for some shipments this fall were 15 times pre-pandemic levels, according to the Freightos index.

That’s helped fill American store shelves — and carriers’ coffers — but it has battered many African shippers, according to interviews with more than 30 maritime analysts, shippers, freight forwarders and cargo carriers in the United States, Africa and elsewhere.

Already lagging in coronavirus vaccinations, Africa risks becoming collateral damage in the supply wars. The International Monetary Fund says the 45 nations of sub-Saharan Africa are mired in the slowest economic recovery of any region, with supply chain disruptions helping fuel inflation at roughly twice its pre-pandemic level.”

We’ve seen this first hand. Our freight costs to get our shoes to the US have more than doubled since 2019, and we’re now in a position where we can’t afford to cover that increased cost with our existing prices.

From the very start, we wanted to make our shoes competitively priced with the rest of the industry. Our shoes are the most socially and environmentally responsible running shoe, but we don’t want to ask customers to make a sacrifice on quality or cost to choose the responsible shoe.

As we realised we had to raise our prices, we looked around the industry to make sure we were still true to that vision. With the improvements we’ve made in quality and the general changes in the industry, we saw that we were actually priced well below market norms. It seemed as though we were trying to compete on price, rather than being on par with price. So thankfully, as we raise prices, we can comfortably still say that you can choose the socially responsible shoe, while not paying more than the less-responsible alternatives.

As of February 1st, 2022 in the US, the Lapatet will sell for $130, the Iten will be $130, and the Koobi Fora will be $130. Our prices in Kenya will remain the same.

Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to getting you in a new pair and helping you fulfill your 2022 ambitions.