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Adidas Accuses Wal-Mart of Selling Unsafe, Substandard Athletic Shoes

Product quality has been one of the largest casualties of the Wal-Mart economy. As product prices have dropped, so too have product standards. Wal-Mart is notorious for selling low-quality goods, but the company has always used low prices as its defense. Adidas, however, isn’t buying it.

As part of a copyright infringement lawsuit, German sporting goods company Adidas has accused Wal-Mart of false advertising, claiming Wal-Mart mislead customers by marketing a pair of Adidas imitations as “running shoes.” Adidas claims this label is inaccurate, given that the shoes will fall apart if anyone actually tried to run in them. Lawyers for Adidas, in explaining how Wal-Mart’s shoes failed numerous durability tests, said the shoes were “dangerous” and “not fit to run in.”

Wal-Mart’s relentless pursuit of lower costs has meant copying designs and reducing product quality, but both of those strategies have come back to haunt the retailer. The safety concerns Adidas has raised inevitably apply to many of Wal-Mart’s shoes, as fly-by-night sourcing and flawed inspection methods are essentially company policy. Wal-Mart says it uses Consumer Testing Laboratories, an “independent testing laboratory” to test many of its products.  Did CTL test these athletic shoes? And what does Wal-Mart plan to do to address these safety issues going forward? Lawsuits such as this one wouldn’t be a issue if Wal-Mart could look past immediate costs to the long term benefits of higher quality goods.

Adidas Tells Judge Wal-Mart Sport Shoes Aren’t Fit to Run In [Bloomberg News]

Adidas AG, the world’s second-largest sporting-goods maker, told a U.S. judge that Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s “Athletic Works” shoe models might injure runners and shouldn’t be advertised to athletes.

At least two Wal-Mart athletic shoe models are built with substandard materials and fell apart during simulated running tests, Adidas claimed in court papers filed June 13 in federal court in Portland, Oregon.

The shoes “could potentially injure short- and long- distance runners,” Norbert Teston, a quality-assurance manager for Adidas’s U.S. unit, said in the filing. “They are, quite simply, not suitable to run in.”

The false-advertising claim is among several in a three- year-old trademark-infringement suit accusing the world’s largest retailer of copying Adidas’s three-stripe motif on shoes. A jury trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 6.

Adidas, based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, claimed packaging for Wal-Mart’s “Johnny” and “Carson” models misleads consumers by using photographs of joggers and using action words including “performance.”

One Wal-Mart model was heavily damaged during a 120-mile (193 kilometer) simulated run, according to Teston’s declaration. The other model didn’t complete the test performed by Adidas because it fell apart after 97 miles, he said. Adidas’s shoes are required to complete the same test without significant wear.

Wal-Mart filed a motion on May 16 asking U.S. District Judge Anna Brown to dismiss the claim.

Product Packaging

“Adidas is unable to put forth any evidence to show that Wal-Mart’s use of the words ‘running’ and ‘performance’ and the image of a jogger on limited product packaging for athletic footwear is false,” Wal-Mart said in the filing.

The suit, filed in 2005, claims Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart “maliciously’’ sold hundreds of thousands of imitation Adidas shoes in violation of a 2002 settlement that barred it from offering “confusingly similar’’ products.

A shopper, “when faced with aisles and aisles of footwear at a Wal-Mart store, is more likely to be attracted to the Adidas knockoff after seeing the stripes because of that mark’s familiarity,’’ Adidas claimed in court filings.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore didn’t immediately return a call today for comment.

Nike Inc., based in Beaverton Oregon, is the world’s largest sporting-goods maker.

The case is Adidas America Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 3:05-cv-01297, U.S. District Court, District of Oregon (Portland).

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 19, 2008

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COMMENTS

((((TWEET!))))

Hey, bbrd....here:

As part of a copyright infringement lawsuit...

Ken V in Texas
Thursday, June 19 at 02:28 PM

the same shoes are sold everywhere else including shoe stores and we dont hear crap from you wm haters on that.picking at straws wmw shut up.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Thursday, June 19 at 04:47 PM

I would think that anybody wanting to purchase QUALITY running shoes would NOT GO TO WAL-MART TO BUY THEM. If you want quality in anything you buy--DON’T BUY IT AT WAL-MART.

Jane in N.Y. in
Friday, June 20 at 09:32 AM

Jane, does that also go for purchasing the Charmin toilet paper, Pedigree dog food and Clorox bleach when I can purchase them for less money at Walmart than at my local Safeway store?

mary in
Friday, June 20 at 10:55 AM

Jane,
I couldn’t agree more - for most high quality items, I wouldn’t go near a walmart, and I think most people feel the same. So I pose some questions - so what?? why is that a problem?? Don’t most people know that they’re not getting high quality at Walmart?? If they want to save a couple bucks on some lesser brands, isn’t that their right to choose?? What if I don’t want a $500 air-conditioner, and will settle for $99.99??

I just think it’s kind of funny how so many posts on this board claim “Walmart is low quality.” WE ALL KNOW THIS!! In fact, that’s exactly WHY some people shop there - because they can get middle/low quality stuff for very cheap. I don’t think anyone here is trying to pass of Walmart as a purveyor of classy, high-quality goods. By eliminating Walmart, it’s the lower class people who would suffer the most. What do you have against poor people???

aaa in
Friday, June 20 at 03:40 PM

“By eliminating Walmart, it’s the lower class people who would suffer the most. What do you have against poor people???"~aaa in

By eliminating Walmart employee’s (eg Jonquiere Quebec), who are the lowest pay and just want a fairer deal,it’s the lower paid people who suffer the most. What does WM have against poor people???

R E M E M B E R
J O N Q U I E R E
Q U E B E C
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

R E M E M B E R
J A C K S O N V I L L E
T E X A S
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

Alex in Ontario, Canada
Friday, June 20 at 06:05 PM

Alex,

“By eliminating Walmart employee’s (eg Jonquiere Quebec), who are the lowest pay and just want a fairer deal,it’s the lower paid people who suffer the most”

Are you saying that those Jonquiere Wal-Mart employees were getting the lowest pay in that area?  If they were, then wouldn’t it be reasonable to say, that those workers have all found new, higher paying jobs by now, therefore, it could be said that Wal-Mart did them a favor, as they are better off now, not having to work for that low wage, ‘evil’ Wal-Mart anymore!!

What I can’t understand, is if Wal-Mart is so terrible, why, after over 2 years, do you still wish those workers were still working for them?

I’ll let you in on a secret, if Wal-Mart was willing to close down the store, they would not have been willing to give much in ‘bargaining’ and it would have ended up in a strike and Wal-Mart wouldn’t care, after all, they lost the business when they closed the store, so, why would they worry about lost sales during a strike, and those workers could still be on strike or have given in, like the California grocery workers did!!

RDS in
Friday, June 20 at 10:53 PM

jane the same shoes you hiss at wm for selling are sold at your favorite stores and shoes stores and you dont piss and moan about that but you gripe cause wm sells them.jane zipp your lip and shut up.i am sick and tired of all you arrogant hypocrites whining about everything wm does good and bad but we dont hear the same whining from you folks when all of your favorite stores do the same things that wm does and sell the same items from china and overseas that wm does.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Saturday, June 21 at 02:51 AM

who cares about anything i ever wrote.what a waste of my own time.maybe i can catch the weekend replay of rush and know that i am not the only person so totally full of shit.i love the chinese communist and wm support of them you elitist hypocrite arrogant american part time whiners who piss and moan that your good paying jobs left the country and now your poor crybabies.i love being poor for wm to be rich why not you.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Saturday, June 21 at 08:46 AM

Don’t most people know that they’re not getting high quality at Walmart??

Thank you, aaa, for pointing out so clearly the difference between the Wal-Mart of Sam’s Dream and the Beast of Bentonville of today.

Sam Walton’s Values

We model ourselves after Sam Walton, who was never satisfied until prices were as low as they could be. Or that a product’s quality was as high as customers deserved and expected.

Are you saying, aaa, that shoddy ‘sport’ shoes that fly apart under stress are all Wal-Mart customers deserve and expect?
Good enough for who it’s for, huh?

Ken V in Texas
Saturday, June 21 at 09:10 AM

Ken V,

“Don’t most people know that they’re not getting high quality at Walmart?? ~ aaa

What you have to understand, is there are different degrees of quality, take this for example:  A Rolex watch is ‘quality’ and garners a high price, but I bought a watch last year, for $6.95 at Wal-Mart and while I know it is not a quality watch like a Rolex, it still meets my needs, because it lets me know what time it is!!  Now, it may only last for 3 to 4 years, but, by then, I can buy another one, for about the same price!!  Now, maybe a Rolex, may last 20 years or so, I can buy a whole lot of $6.95 watches for the price of 1 Rolex!!

Then, there are things like CD’s and DVD’s, they are the same ‘quality’ anywhere you buy them!!  This goes for many things across the board, a customer can decide, how much ‘quality’ they need in a product and go from there, whether to buy at Wal-Mart or somewhere else!!  But, to think you should ONLY buy a ‘quality’ product and so you pay a higher price somewhere else, because you think that something like say Quaker State oil at Wal-Mart is of lesser quality there, could cost you thousands of dollars over the long haul!!

In order to be a good comparison shopper, you need a bunch of stores to compare prices and quality at, and Wal-Mart is just one of them!!

RDS in
Saturday, June 21 at 11:06 PM

what difference does quality make?the same items are sold for higher prices at all you wm haters favorite stores and we never hear any bitching and whining from any of you about the product qualiity,but wm sells it at lower prices and you throw a hisy fit..are you getting a better quality product by paying higher prices for the same items imoported from china and their slaveshops over there at your favorite stores and will it last you longer?no and thats what you wm hater fools are not smart enough to get.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Sunday, June 22 at 04:10 AM

...what difference does quality make?

See the happy moron,
He doesn’t give a damn.
I wish I were a moron,
— My God! Perhaps I am!

~ Dorothy Parker

Ken V in Texas
Sunday, June 22 at 11:40 AM

poor people dont deserve to live.all you wm haters that want a better life are fools.you whine and piss and moan about low wages and low quality at wm and forget that is the best and only thing as wm bleeds this country to death as their economic right and screw all you patriots because you wont love chinese communism labor and low wage crap at my beloved wm.you are all elitist fools that wont love wm slave labor and poverty in america.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Sunday, June 22 at 03:42 PM

quality sucks.i hate quality and everything it stands for including american jobs that displace chinese workers in the communist paradise and all the crap they send us from china.wm benefits and you american patriots can all drop dead as quality seeking fools wanting american made quality products and supporting your fellow americans you elitist wm hating hypocrites.everybody does it so wm crap is ok and the entire system must be right.you are all stupid.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Sunday, June 22 at 04:31 PM

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