Chicer By The Dozen

In Consumed: The Starbury: A (very ) cheap sneaker uses an endorsement deal to bring cachet to volume sales.

It’s no secret that a lot of consumers, for a long time, have found the price of some athletic shoes objectionably high. This has not, of course, stopped the sale of expensive athletic shoes. But it does seem to have created an opening for something not often seen in contemporary consumer culture: a deep-discount retailer’s positioning its low prices as a social statement.

The retailer is Steve & Barry’s, a fast-growing apparel chain, and the low-priced product lending a halo to its cheap prices is the Starbury sneaker. The Starbury One costs less than $15 and is endorsed by the New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury. Steve & Barry’s won’t confirm total sales numbers, but it has been reported that about one million pairs have been sold. When the shoe made its debut last August, publicity caused lines at many Steve & Barry’s locations. The lines sparked more publicity, which helped sales even more.

Steve & Barry’s started out more than two decades ago as a single shop near the University of Pennsylvania, selling licensed Penn clothing for low prices. Gradually it set up similar operations near other colleges. But most of the chain’s growth has come since 2000, when it began opening big stores in malls and started selling casual wear under its own name. In 2005, the chain added 3.5 million square feet of retail space, more than any other mall-based chain that year, by the reckoning of Business Week. With about 200 locations today, Steve & Barry’s plans to open another 100 in 2007.

The basic proposition isn’t complicated: ”Our strategy forever has been ‘less than $15,’ ” says Andy Todd, president of the chain. Aside from the college gear and private-brand clothes, it also sells T-shirts featuring comic-book characters, vintage ad imagery, slogans like ”I’m not as think as you drunk I am” and so on. Much of it is collegey, and all of it is very cheap.

The Starbury came about, Todd says, when the company got wind that Marbury (who is almost as well known for his tough upbringing, documented in Darcy Frey’s widely praised book ”The Last Shot,” as for his playmaking skills) wanted to back a sneaker that trumpeted low price as a significant selling point. ”It was a natural fit,” Todd says. ”It’s exactly what we’ve been doing for 20 years.” This spring, the Starbury line of shoes and clothing will jump from about 50 products to more than 200, including the Starbury Two, skateboard shoes and ”lifestyle” items like polo shirts — all of them for less than $15. Todd argues that big-name brands build advertising costs into their prices, which are set as high as they think the market will bear, in contrast to the discount model of the lowest possible markup, paying off in sheer volume. ”Anybody can afford a $10 jersey,” he says. ”It’s available to all.”

This is interesting in part because the prevailing wisdom among many marketers is that nobody wants things that are ”available to all” anymore — that’s why pricey customized or limited-edition sneakers are popular. It’s also interesting because plenty of big-name discounters sell cheap sneakers and clothes, but few if any have enjoyed glowing, power-to-the-people media treatment. (Wal-Mart leaps to mind.)

The difference may be in how Steve & Barry’s adopted the big-brand strategy of getting the endorsement of a big sports star (the Knicks’ record notwithstanding) on an exclusive product line. Having a brand tied to Marbury, an N.B.A. player who wears the sneakers on court, addresses quality issues, Todd argues. More important, that star endorser was able to frame the product as a response to overpriced brands that take advantage of people still mired in the poverty that he escaped. It gave the sneakers a ”cool” factor and message that could be delivered not in an ad but on ”Live With Regis and Kelly.” ”It became this social movement,” Todd maintains.

Consider the case of Sam Cibula, a Starbury One enthusiast from Madison, Wis., as related by his father, Matt. A Knicks fan, 8-year-old Sam was interested when he heard about the shoe, and he liked the orange-and-blue-trim design. When he wore his pair to school, the shoes were ”immediately recognized by all the fourth and fifth graders,” the elder Cibula, who works for an educational publishing company, relates. From a third-grade point of view, of course, that’s a serious endorsement. And as Matt Cibula notes, the shoes are cheap enough that perhaps Sam will end up with more than one pair. And that’s what Steve & Barry’s is looking for: volume.