Footwear brand OOFOS has been at the forefront of active recovery – innovating and bringing exciting products to market.
Paul Brown, Juan Diaz and Lou Panaccione co-founded White Water Enterprises in 2006 – a corporate vehicle for incubating exciting new footwear innovations discovered and/or developed by the team, and the USA company from which OOFOS sprang in 2011.
It took two years to develop the material that would become OOfoam. OOFOS absorbs 37 per cent more impact than traditional foam footwear and their patented footbed cradles and supports arches to reduce energy exertion in the ankles by up to 47 per cent when compared to competitors’ footwear (based on a 2018 University of Virginia laboratory study).
The combination of OOfoam technology and patented footbed design are the foundation of every pair of OOFOS Recovery Footwear.
OSC took over the distribution of OOFOS in the UK, Ireland and France on January 1, 2024.
Jon Wild, brand director at OSC Running, said: “We took over from Sport Factory/ Unify. Sport Factory stepped back from the UK from a wholesale perspective. We took over straight away and then we took over the e-com business a few months later and the Amazon business slightly later.
“The main remit coming in is to grow the wholesale business and to really work on communicating the two core things with OOFOS, which is very much around recovery as an overarching story for the stores themselves and recovery in general.
“So rather than the shoe that can propel you forward faster and return as much energy as possible into your body, Lou and Paul’s idea was to do the opposite and actually to absorb as much impact as possible while you’re going through that recovery phase.
“They then built on that for a good-looking product that is very wearable that people can enjoy using. And from there on build a whole product range that appeals to everyone.”
OOFOS started out with the OOriginal, a thong style sandal, and the OOaah slide sandal. From these beginnings the brand has diversified its range.
Jon said: “What we find with retailers is you get them into the core products to start with, the thong styles, OOriginal, and the OOaah slider. They then build up that programme accordingly with you.
“Then you add in colour because, the beauty with OOFOS you find is that people just fall in love with the product, which is fantastic.
“People are just wearing OOFOS all day when they can, every day.”
The brand is now moving to have shoes that can be worn 24 hours a day and 12 months a year with various styles that can appeal to anyone.
Jon said: “Our new models are proving popular, some of the styles are selling in a volume that was more than I would anticipate selling.
“OOFOS have always done a good job with colour, there’s a nice mix there of the best sellers in new colours every six months, some great core colours that carry forward and then some colour that now carries forward because that’s just very popular as well.
“Then there are different stack heights on models such as the OOmega. But the real growth has been in two areas. The push is on our closed toe models. The open toe models’ sales go up massively in the summer even though they’re a recovery brand and people are working out all year round.
“For sustainable long-term business growth, the logic is you develop the closed toe product.
“They’ve had several models in the past, the OOmg, the OOmg Sport. Then they had a lace version which made it look a little bit more aesthetically like a trainer. And a lot of people live in trainers all day.
“Now they’ve taken it to the next level. They’ve redeveloped their outsole, the look of it, obviously not the foam, the foam is the foam, to make it look a bit more like a modern running shoe style with a really nice knitted upper.
“That’s the OOmy Stride product, it’s just launched online and we are sold out in certain sizes already.
“We undercooked it, but that’s a great problem to have because it means that it’s got good traction.
“And again, it’s that OOFOS customer coming back saying I love the product so much, I want to wear it every day. I can’t wear a thong or a slider all day, every day, 365 days a year, so give me something I can.
“The OOmy Stride has been a great new launch and they’ve done just recently a boot, was like a felt upper called the OOmega Londoner with a felt upper. And I thought, wow, this is a bit left field, a bit niche. But, we’ve sold a really nice amount of them direct to consumer at the moment. However, we will be rolling it out to retailers
“But again, customers are telling us that if you make if you make an OOFOS product, that’s nice looking, they’ll come and buy it because it’s got OOfoam in it and they want to wear it all the time.”
And OOFOS are not resting on their laurels with another new launch that should get consumers excited.
Jon added: “Outdoor brands have a product that’s a tent mule or down slipper. OOFOS have just done that. It’s called the OOcoozie Thermo Mule.
“It’s got a Primaloft Gold upper. So, it’s premier insulation for your foot on that OOFOS outsole.
“We launched the men’s last month, the women’s was delayed but have just come in and they’re ticking away really nicely.”
OOFOS are also very passionate about a cause very close to their hearts.
Project Pink is a dedicated effort to support and raise awareness of breast cancer and was set up in 2014 in the States following the diagnosis and later, sad passing of one of the company’s first employees, Duncan Finigan, from the disease. The initiative’s focus is on giving back year-round.
OOFOS is now supporting the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity in the UK. From 1st November 2023 to 31st December 2024, 1% of all net sales via www.oofos.co.uk is being donated to Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign Trading Company Limited in support of The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity (registered charity number 1095197). So far £54,411.08 has been donated.
Jon said: “We have a partnership, which we carried forward from our predecessors with the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Cancer Research is very close to the heart of OOFOS. So, they want each distributor, each country, to have a cause, hopefully, cancer related. So they took on the Royal Marsden a number of years ago.”
