Assistant Store Manager

Skechers and Care Bears just launched A collection in Malaysia, and The kidult market here is already way ahead. The collaboration between Skechers and Care Bears arrives ahead of the franchise's 45th anniversary, with a collection marketed on adult childhood memories but built almost entirely in girls' and toddlers' sizes. September 11, 2026 * Skechers has launched a Care Bears collection in Malaysia, featuring Foamies clogs and sneakers with bear characters and rainbow motifs. * The collection spans girls', toddler, and women's styles, priced from RM199, available at selected Skechers stores and online. * Malaysia is already ahead of the trend, with Asia's largest Care Bears flagship store at Bukit Bintang driving the "kidult" market. Care Bears - the rainbow-coloured bears created by American Greetings in 1982, each identified by a unique "belly badge" symbol representing a different emotion - turn 44 this year. The adults who grew up watching the animated series in the 1980s are now in their late thirties and forties - and Skechers has noticed. The collaboration between Skechers and Cloudco Entertainment, owner of the Care Bears franchise, launched in Malaysia today (11 Sep) with a collection of Foamies clogs and sneakers carrying the brand's signature bear characters, belly badges, and rainbow motifs. Skechers President Michael Greenberg described Care Bears as "one of the most coveted childhood memories for millions of adults today." The women's section of the collection has two styles. The shoes the announcement is actually about. The bulk of the collection - six sneaker styles across the Hugs N Snugs, UNO Lite, and Twinkle Toes lines - is designed for girls and toddlers, with prices ranging from RM259 to RM299. The girls' range includes light-up designs, rhinestone-embellished toe caps, 3-D character graphics, and glittery synthetic uppers featuring Cheer Bear, Grumpy Bear, Funshine Bear, Share Bear, and Good Luck Bear across various silhouettes. Toddler versions of two styles carry the same Care Bears-inspired design without the light-up feature. The women's Foamies range - a Foamies Surge clog at RM259 and a Foamies Max Cushioning at RM299 - features Care Bears character artwork, CaliBits charms, and machine-washable construction. Both are slip-on styles. Care Bears was introduced in 1982 through greeting cards and consumer products before expanding into animated television specials and a feature film trilogy between 1983 and 1987. The franchise has since been revived through Netflix and HBO Max animated series. The adults who grew up with the original run are now of an age to have school-going children. Greenberg described the collaboration as "a fun way to celebrate their favourite characters," while Robert Prinzo, Head of Global Licensing at Cloudco Entertainment, noted that Care Bears fans can "walk down memory lane or get to know our Beary Besties for the very first time." The collection is priced from RM199 and is available at selected Skechers Concept Stores, including 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Pavilion Bukit Jalil, Pavilion KL, Sunway Pyramid, Suria KLCC Mall, and The Exchange TRX Mall, as well as online at skechers.com.my. Malaysia did not wait for the collaboration. While Skechers frames the partnership around Care Bears' approaching 45th anniversary, Malaysia has been running ahead of the trend for some time. Asia's largest Care Bears flagship store sits at ANSA Walk, Bukit Bintang - a pastel-coloured retail space stocking everything from 15cm bag keychains to 65cm plush bears, blind box collectibles, branded apparel, and localised merchandise including Care Bears durian chocolates and Earl Grey tea cookies. The Malaysian market's appetite for Care Bears merchandise sits within a broader regional surge in Y2K nostalgia and the so-called "kidult" collectibles economy - adults purchasing childhood-adjacent products for themselves rather than for children. In that context, the Skechers collaboration's two women's Foamies styles represent a notably conservative read of the room.

Skechers and KNAPP advance European logistics with new distribution center. 9 September 2026, 12:58 by KNAPP (Europe) * Skechers is building a new highly automated European distribution center in Liège, Belgium, to address growing capacity needs and improve operational flexibility. * The facility will feature over 3.3 million storage locations and advanced intralogistics technologies including Evo Shuttle systems, goods-to-person stations, and an integrated KiSoft software suite. * KNAPP, a long-term technology partner, is responsible for the design, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of the center, ensuring high system availability. * The new distribution center aims to set new standards in scalability, performance, and supply reliability for European fashion and footwear logistics. Skechers, Where Comfort is a Technology(TM), invests in a new highly automated European distribution center (EDC) in Liège, Belgium. The global lifestyle and performance brand is relying on KNAPP as a technology partner to provide the intralogistics systems for the new facility. Opening in stages that will be complete by mid-2030, the logistics center will start to supply the European market from a single location at the close of 2028 and will be designed to allow future growth. With a footprint of around 230,000 m^2 (2,475,699 sq ft) and a planned capacity of more than 3.3 million storage locations, the new EDC will represent one of the largest automation projects in the history of European fashion and footwear logistics. The answer to growing capacity requirements. The existing European distribution center in Milmort in the province of Liège is reaching its capacity limits due to Skechers' continued growth. The central objectives behind the new EDC are twofold: Ensuring the distribution capacities for the long term in Europe and reducing manual processes to enable Skechers to stay competitive and take action flexibly. "For more than 23 years, Skechers has placed its trust in Wallonia as a strategic base for its European operations - and this new phase is the next chapter of our growth. This massive, automated and sustainable building puts us at the forefront of distribution to Europe and makes us fit for the future," says David Weinberg, COO at Skechers. The new tech standard for Europe's footwear logistics. KNAPP is implementing an integrated process that handles all material flows from goods-in to goods-out in a single solution. At its heart is one of the largest Evo Shuttle systems in the world, which stores Skechers' cartons across more than 3 million storage locations. Additional advancements include a shuttle system for replenishment and buffering as well as goods-to-person work stations, an automatic pallet storage system and extensive conveyor and sorting systems. All processes are interlinked thanks to the intelligent KiSoft software suite by KNAPP, maximizing transparency, efficiency and scalability along the entire supply chain. The automation makes it possible to process a growing number of orders while keeping availability and service quality high. It has been designed to handle different carton and product sizes flexibly and supports Skechers' future growth. "This next-generation logistics center was developed in close collaboration with Skechers teams and represents a huge technological milestone. The solution combines a high degree of integration and performance to efficiently handle large volumes and provide excellent service to end customers," explains Oliver Lehner, Vice President Partner & Products Solutions at KNAPP. Solution at a glance. Location: Liège (Belgium) Surface area: 230,000 m^2 (2,475,699 ft^2) Capacity: > 3.3 million storage locations Market: Central DC for Europe Volume: Up to 10 million pairs of shoes per month Technologies: Evo Shuttle 2D and 1D, goods-to-person work stations, pallet shuttle system, conveyor and sorter systems, KiSoft software Long-standing partnership as the success factor. The technical concept behind the solution was one of the key factors convincing Skechers to award the commission to KNAPP, along with the companies' shared years of partnership, the innovativeness of the technologies and comprehensive service concept of KNAPP. KNAPP not only helps Skechers implement the new EDC but will also support its ongoing operation with a Smart Maintenance Approach. It unites predictive maintenance with a Resident Engineering team on site to ensure maximum system availability. For KNAPP, the project is one of the most significant commissions in the fashion and lifestyle sector in recent years. The highly automated distribution center that will be built in Belgium together with Skechers will set new standards with regard to scalability, performance and supply reliability.