While the rest of the athletic footwear industry races toward Black Friday with discounts blazing, Swiss brand On Holding (ONON) is doing something quietly radical: absolutely nothing.
No deals. No promotions. No "limited-time offers." The company is planting its flag firmly in premium territory and refusing to budge, even as competitors flood inboxes with holiday savings.
"We're going into this holiday season with a full price strategy," On Executive co-Chairman Caspar Coppetti said during the company's Q3 earnings call last week. "So we have no discounts coming up, and that's against the backdrop of a very price-competitive environment. So we're really staying true to the discipline that the premium strategy demands."
Everyone Else Is Discounting
On's competitors definitely aren't following this playbook. Sportswear giants Adidas and Nike (NKE) started hyping Black Friday sales weeks before Thanksgiving even arrived. HOKA, owned by Deckers (DECK), was already pushing holiday running gifts at discounted prices on its website.
It's a bold move to hold prices firm when everyone around you is slashing them. But here's the thing: On's numbers suggest the strategy might actually be working.
The Results Tell a Story
On's Q3 net sales hit 794.4 million Swiss francs ($994.3 million), according to its earnings report. More impressively, net income for the quarter reached 118.9 million francs, up from just 30.5 million francs during the same period last year. That's nearly quadrupling profits year-over-year.
Feeling confident, On raised its full-year sales guidance from 2.91 billion francs to 2.98 billion francs.
Meanwhile, other companies in the space sound considerably less optimistic about what's ahead.
Nike expects its fiscal Q2 revenue to decrease by low-single digits and gross margins to fall 300 to 375 basis points, Nike CFO Matthew Friend said during the company's fiscal Q1 earnings call in September. The company's Q1 net income was $700 million, down 31% year over year.
HOKA sales are expected to grow by "a low-teens percentage versus last year," Deckers CEO Stefano Caroti said during the company's Q2 earnings call last month. That's a downgrade from the mid-teens growth the company had anticipated for the brand in the previous quarter.
HOKA and UGG helped lift Deckers' bottom line in Q2, with the brands seeing an 11.1% and 10.1% sales increase respectively year-over-year. Other Deckers-owned brands weren't so lucky, experiencing a 26.5% decrease, according to its earnings report.
The Tariff Factor
Tariffs have become a convenient villain in recent earnings calls, and both Nike and Deckers pointed to trade policy as a reason for trimming their sales guidance.
"So as US consumers are beginning to see some price increases, it is impacting their purchase behavior within the consumer discretionary space," Deckers CFO Steven Fasching said during the earnings call.
Recent reciprocal tariff increases on certain countries may cost Nike $1.5 billion on an annualized basis, up from the $1 billion the company anticipated the prior quarter, Friend said during Nike's earnings call.
On took a different approach. The company proactively raised its US prices before the tariffs were even implemented, which led to "a slightly positive margin effect in Q3," company CEO Martin Hoffmann said during the Q3 earnings call.
"So we are fully in control of our future," he added. "We will digest the tariffs and still be well above our long-term target."
It's a textbook example of turning a potential problem into an advantage. While competitors are using tariffs as an explanation for disappointing results, On treated them as a known variable and adjusted early. The premium pricing strategy gives them room to absorb cost increases without panicking or slashing prices to maintain volume.
Whether this approach holds up through a full holiday season remains to be seen, but for now, On is running circles around the competition while everyone else is busy marking things down.
