Three more Athlete’s Foot franchises are now enjoying a larger, more contemporary store design and offering a wider range of products. The new premises, which have opened in the last two months, are in Southland, Melbourne; Belconnen in Canberra and Casuarina, Darwin.

Athlete’s Foot managing director, Michael Cooper said “We were, in many of our stores, bursting in terms of size, so we’ve taken the opportunity not just to grow the store size a little bigger, but to grow it substantially bigger. They’ve increased by about 60 per cent and in doing that we’ve had the opportunity to add new products to our range.”

The larger range now offers a broad array of shoes made for Comfort, Work and Kids, and well known athletic brands such as Asics, Nike and Adidas are still available. The Comfort category has been expanded and now includes brands such as Merrell, Ecco and Naot, whereas the newly added Work category includes work boots from exclusive brand, Ascent.

The first new design store opened in North Ryde’s Macquarie Centre in October 2008, and according to Cooper, there has been “a tremendous response, both in terms of sales increases and consumer feedback, as well as a real embrace of the new products that we are offering in the stores.”

Ten Athlete’s Foot franchises will enjoy the new store design by Christmas 2009. There are currently 123 franchises across the country.