Some things to think about for those who follow the shoe business:
1) I see K-Swiss is trying to get into the running shoe business. How many brands are there now? And if you know runners, you know they are pretty demanding people. And that means they are going with brands that work.
* Nike used to be the leader in the running business but they have fallen to the sidelines. Runners now seem to be looking at the other brands like Asics, Brooks, Saucony, etc. What makes K-Swiss think they can get into the running shoe business when they cannot even make a small hit into the market? They may have a bunch of triathlon people, but so what? Has K-Swiss made anything that inspires people to walk into a store and ask for K-Swiss? From what I have seen off their web page, nothing there that makes me want to go to my local running store and ask for K-Swiss.
2) What ever happen to high-quality tennis shoes that K-Swiss was known for? They used to have some great comfortable tennis shoes that I loved to wear. Now it seems to be weak offerings as they seem to only want to be a running shoe brand.
3)I remember something about K-Swiss getting into this parkour or urban running thingy. What ever happen to that? Or did that die like that supposed sport?
4) In looking at the casual line-up over the past few years, nothing is really exciting. It does seem to be only the Classic they are trying to re-invent, and "Oh yeah, we have these other shoes to get excited about...."
* Are people tired of the same athletic looks? Maybe. But then again, K-Swiss does not bring any exciting or cool to the world. In fact, it seems they tend to copy-and-slightly modify other brands.

K-Swiss had its big time back in 2000-2005. Now the brand is hurting by trying to find itself and by being all over the place with all these different types of shoes for sports and not concentrating on what it did best. And Steven Nichols does not seem to care (or perhaps know) what is going on.

Maybe a shake-up is in order K-Swiss, from those right below Steven to the directors over seeing design, development, and marketing. Those people are the leaders of this brand and they have not done anything right lately but design, develop and market unproven and/or boring stuff.

K-Swiss (Steven Nichols) has come to the table explaining how tough business is and how they missed things. But he has been saying this for the past several season and now years. I think it is time for perhaps even Steven to step aside and bring in people (from inside and outside the shoe business) who know what they are talking about PLUS have shown success in running a shoe business or a category of a shoe business, and not rely on people who just tell Steven what he wants to hear and makes him feel good. If those people question or show doubt about something, then maybe this could help Steven think about things in another light and step back and let people show him something better (current people seem not to be able to do this). And this could help turn this brand around.........