Because everyone has one...you have explained it yourself.
Every consumer brand that expands quickly will keep expanding to the point that they saturate their market (GoPro, Doc Martens was a recent IPO in the UK that has self-destructed, it happens over and over). What is unusual about this case is that, afaik, they didn't IPO. Usually the IPO is the prelude to saturation and then bankruptcy because the incentives get totally skewed (and because companies will usually fiddle with supply before the IPO to boost the sale price).
Declining quality might also be an issue. Doc Martens no longer have the quality or guarantee that they used to. Similarly, other posts have mentioned that Pyrex has apparently changed their formula to a lower quality substitute.
If Doc Martens went public in the 70's, they'd probably be in a lot better shape today. They aren't nearly as popular now as they were in the 70's thru 90's. They picked a weird time to go public.
They didn't. They were acquired by private equity a few years before their IPO. The company had some issues with production/distribution, PE owner fixed these, pumped up supply, created a lot of buzz, sales skyrocketed (they are massively more popular than the 90s, they weren't a particularly big brand then...you have heard of them now), IPO'ed the company and then sales collapsed because everyone has one and they could push the sales dial only so far. They massively increased penetration with young people, the brand was really very limited before PE came in (and tbf, PE have ruined it because everyone has them now).
Btw, the bonus pool for the PE owners for the DOC IPO was sizeable. Iirc, it was £400m, there were junior bankers taking home multiple millions on one transaction (Permira has an eat what you kill approach, so the bonus pool was shared with junior staff...it was so large that I don't think senior staff could have taken all of it anyway). You had people in their mid-20s making 10x the value of their parent's house in a few years, it is one of the best PE deals of the last few decades (the bonus pool was actually larger than the purchase price).
Consumers significantly under-estimate how easy it is to get them to buy shit. There are PE funds who specialise in just these kind of deals: buy old brand, pump it up with hot air, IPO to clueless retail investors or sell to a bigger company...it works.
> (they are massively more popular than the 90s, they weren't a particularly big brand then...you have heard of them now)
I don't know where you get that from. In the 90's they were so popular you could go into literally any shoe store and buy them used because everyone wanted a pair, and shoe stores knew it. You weren't a real rebel if you weren't wearing a pair of Docs. In the 90's, rebels were a dime a dozen. Docs were everywhere.
Every consumer brand that expands quickly will keep expanding to the point that they saturate their market (GoPro, Doc Martens was a recent IPO in the UK that has self-destructed, it happens over and over). What is unusual about this case is that, afaik, they didn't IPO. Usually the IPO is the prelude to saturation and then bankruptcy because the incentives get totally skewed (and because companies will usually fiddle with supply before the IPO to boost the sale price).