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What's gone wrong at Nike? How the world's sportswear giant lost its mojo. 1 hour ago Michael RaceBusiness reporter, New York It's been a difficult few years for Nike. The largest sportswear brand on the planet, named after the ancient Greek goddess of victory, has been losing of late. Losing sales, losing customers and losing ground to its rivals. The one-time industry disruptor is now the establishment and in the middle of a tricky turnaround plan aimed at clinging on to market dominance. Nike's latest financial results show signs a turnaround strategy put in place by company veteran Elliott Hill, who was coaxed out of retirement two years ago to lead the firm, is working - but the pace of change is more marathon than sprint. However, its recovery has been dented by the loss of football star Kylian Mbappé, who ended his 20-year association with the brand last week to join fast-growing Swiss rival, On. The Real Madrid striker's departure raises the question of whether Nike can remain the top logo for not just elite athletes, but also the fans that idolise them. To be clear, Nike is still a mega brand and popular the world over. But missteps have seen hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off its stock market value as its share price tumbled by 75% over five years. Last month, Nike was ejected from the S&P 100 stock market index of the biggest blue-chip firms in the US. So what's gone wrong? And can Hill turn things around? Matt Powell, a veteran analyst and adviser in the sports retail industry, reckons Nike has made "several strategic errors" which have been difficult to reverse, including cutting ties with retailers to sell only direct to customers online and making limited editions items more available. "The more broadly available those shoes became, the fewer people were interested," Powell says. Other self-inflicted wounds he suggests include spending research and development cash on digital operations rather than new products. "They really shut down their innovation on product. Someone jokingly said they were trying to turn Nike into eBay." That jibe was aimed at John Donahoe, the former eBay boss behind Nike's online direct-to-consumer sales pivot, before he made way for Hill. His tenure saw sales initially soar, driven by pandemic restrictions that boosted online shopping, but subsequent cost-of-living pressures curbed customer spending. As demand weakened overseas in key markets like China, Nike announced cost cuts and redundancies. Its digital distraction allowed newer footwear firms on top of the trends to snap at its heels. Shop shelf space previously occupied by Nike was replaced by brands such as On and Hoka. This was a stark warning to a company that prided and built itself on innovation. Nike was the firm that signed a deal with a rookie called Michael Jordan in the mid-1980s at a time when the company wasn't a major player in basketball and still mostly known for its running trainers. The gamble - spending its entire basketball budget on Jordan before he had even competed in the NBA - made Nike what it is today. The company built a shoe brand around him - Air Jordan. The red and black colours broke NBA rules, but Nike used it as a marketing stunt and paid the fines. In years that followed Nike partnered with generational talents Tiger Woods, Serena Williams and Cristiano Ronaldo, who all donned the Swoosh on their way to golf, tennis and football greatness. While the brand retains partnerships with long-retired Jordan, plus Williams and Ronaldo - Woods ended his association in 2024. "[I'm] not saying that what they did wasn't great, but it was in the past," said Tim Derdenger, an academic in marketing and strategy. "It's not the future and it's not the current and that is what drives apparel sales today." Nike's books still boast top athletes, ranging from Rory McIlory to Vinicius Junior. However, it has now lost its biggest footballing star in Mbappé, who had been with Nike since he was nine years old, along with World Cup winner Lamine Yamal. Yamal suggested his move to Adidas gave him the chance to stand out from Nike's star-studded roster, while Mbappé said On would see him "surrounded by innovators who dream of the same things I do". Was that a parting dig at Nike? Derdenger suggests Mbappé's move had parallels to Jordan's decision decades earlier to choose Nike over Converse and Adidas due to the opportunity for the athlete to become synonymous with one brand. "Athletes have egos and those egos want them to be a part of something big and that they're the ones that are helping drive that change, that growth." Nike down but not out. For all the "doom and gloom", Nike will stay number one, according to Powell - millions worldwide, including young people, remain loyal - but its mistakes have dented its dominance. "Will Nike be the gorilla they once were? I don't think so. Can the brand come back to growth and profitability? Yes," Powell says. "When you shut down innovation, you don't turn it back on and it goes right back to full speed," he adds. Powell thinks Nike's turnaround plan, called "Sport Offense", will start to show positive signs next year. Hill said Nike had "more work to do" on its sportswear, Jordan brand and in China as the company announced quarterly revenues of $11bn, which undershot analysts' expectations. The company said it expected revenues to decline by "high-single digits" in the financial year ahead, adding that it planned to make savings of $2.5bn by 2031, some of which will result in job losses. Last year the company launched a spin-off campaign to its iconic "Just Do It" slogan aimed at younger generations with the line "Why Do It?" Young people, and future sporting stars, may ask themselves: Why Nike?

eBay brings Authenticity Verification to Italy for fashion and luxury. 30 September 2026 eBay is expanding its services in Italy dedicated to the second-hand fashion and luxury market with the launch of Authentication Verification, available from September 2026. The program involves a professional check of eligible items before they are delivered to the buyer, at no additional cost for the service. The relevant listings are identified by a specific badge. After purchase, the product is sent to the eBay authentication center in Germany, where specialized experts verify both the authenticity and the correspondence of the item with what is indicated in the listing. Only after the checks are completed, the product is forwarded to the customer. The service covers bags, clothing, shoes, accessories, and selected brand sneakers priced at least 200 euros, while for watches the threshold starts from 1,500 euros. Activation is automatic for all items that meet the specified requirements. The procedure also applies in the case of returns: the product returns to the authentication center to verify that it is the same as previously checked and that it is returned in the same condition. Italy is thus added to the markets in which eBay has progressively extended the service after its debut in the United States in 2020. Globally, the platform declares to have already authenticated over 15 million items. For eBay, the introduction of Authentication Verification aims to strengthen trust in the buying and selling of fashion and luxury products, especially in an increasingly relevant second-hand market for high-end items. Share it on

Selro integrates Claude AI to Help multichannel sellers create better product listings, faster. Sellers can now generate optimised product titles, descriptions and bullet points directly inside Selro, powered by Anthropic's Claude READING, BERKSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, September 30, 2026 / EINPresswire.com / - Selro, the multichannel inventory and order management platform for online sellers, today announced a new integration with Claude, the AI model from Anthropic. The integration lets sellers generate high-performing product titles, descriptions and summary bullet points from within Selro as they create inventory items and listings. Writing unique, marketplace-ready content for every product is one of the most time-consuming parts of selling online, particularly for sellers managing large catalogues across several channels. With Claude built into the listing workflow, Selro users can produce this content in a few clicks, without leaving the platform or copying text between tools. What sellers can do with Claude in Selro: -Generate a title and description from an image. -Rewrite an existing title. -Rewrite an existing description. -Create product summary bullet points based on the product title or description. Simple to set up: Sellers connect Claude to their Selro account by creating an API key in the Claude Console and entering it in the Selro Claude connector. Selro also supports OpenAI's ChatGPT, so sellers can choose whichever AI provider suits them. Each Selro account can connect one provider at a time. "Sellers shouldn't have to spend hours writing listing copy for every product on every channel. With Claude built into Selro, they can go from a photo or a rough title to a polished, marketplace-ready listing in a few clicks, and spend that time growing their business instead." Said Selro's spokesperson Availability: The Claude integration is available now to Selro users. Setup instructions are in the Selro Help Center at https://help.selro.com/en/articles/14456767-using-ai-to-generate-product-descriptions. New users can try Selro through its free trial at selro.com. About Selro: Founded in 2012, Selro is a cloud-based ecommerce operations platform that helps multichannel sellers manage, automate and scale their online businesses from a single system. The platform centralises inventory, orders, listings, shipping and reporting, reducing manual work and helping sellers avoid overselling. Selro integrates with leading marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart and Fruugo, and with webstore platforms such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and PrestaShop, as well as shipping carriers and accounting tools such as QuickBooks. For more information, or to start a free trial, visit selro.com. Mary Evans Selro +44 118 466 1244 email us here Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.