Running is footwear with a model year on top. A road shoe comes in half sizes and two or three widths, gets updated on a regular cycle, and sells through run specialty stores that book futures months ahead and fill in by size all season, while Dick's, Foot Locker and your own site pull from the same stock. AIMS360 runs the shoes, the apparel and the accessories on one catalog, takes futures at The Running Event on an iPad with no Wi-Fi, and ships the EDI accounts from the same pool.
Parent industry: Footwear ERP →What is a running ERP? It's the system a running shoe or running apparel brand uses to run product, orders, inventory and retailer compliance in one place: widths and half sizes on every shoe, model-year changeovers, futures and at-once orders from run specialty stores, and EDI to the sporting goods and athletic footwear chains. AIMS360 is a consumer brands ERP that does this for footwear and apparel brands, with native EDI to 350+ retailers and offline order writing for trade shows like The Running Event.
A running brand rarely sells just shoes. The shoe gets you in the door, and apparel, socks and accessories fill out the order. All of it has to live on one catalog and draw on one stock pool, or a run specialty order for shoes, shorts and socks turns into three orders and three invoices.
A core road model is updated on a regular cycle, often yearly, and each update changes the upper, the midsole or the fit enough that stores treat it as a new item. The outgoing version has to sell through or close out while futures for the new one are already booked. Get the overlap wrong and you're shipping last year's shoe at a discount into the same doors you just sold the new one to, or you're out of the old one in the sizes that move before the new one lands.
Then the futures season. Run specialty owners book next season's shoes and apparel months ahead, with ship windows, at The Running Event and through reps. Those futures commit factory production, and production commits cash, so the order book and the production plan need to be the same record.
And the reorder. Once the shoe is on the wall, a run specialty store fills in by size and width all season. The middle of the men's run, roughly 9 to 11 in a standard width, turns faster than the ends, and a store that can't get a 10.5 2E the week it sells out fits that runner into another brand. That at-once business runs on the same inventory as the futures, the Dick's purchase orders and your own site.
AIMS360 keeps all three on one catalog. Model version and season on the style record. Futures with start and completion dates. At-once orders against open to sell by size and width. And one available to sell pool across run specialty, EDI retail, Shopify and Amazon, so a Dick's purchase order and a run specialty fill-in can't both take the last 10.5.
Half-size runs and widths set up on size scales, with a UPC for every width and size. Model version, season and carryover or seasonal colorway held on the style record, so the line sheet, the retailer item file and the closeout report all read from the same place. Shoes, apparel, socks and accessories on one catalog.
Futures orders with start and completion dates by account, prepacks for size runs, and at-once fill-ins against open to sell by size and width. Reps write orders on an iPad in RemoteLink, offline at The Running Event. JOOR, NuORDER, RepSpark and Faire orders land as AIMS360 sales orders. Intelligent allocation commits stock and incoming production by completion date and customer priority.
Native EDI to Dick's Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, Hibbett, Academy, Scheels, REI, DSW, Zappos and Nordstrom, mapped in house to each retailer's spec, with GS1-128 labels and the 856 from one scanned shipment and no per-document fees. Shopify and Amazon on the same available to sell, plus 3PL connections if a warehouse ships for you.
The sequence a running brand runs every season, and where each step lands in the system. Futures written at The Running Event in December feed the factory orders, the factory orders feed allocation, and the at-once business runs on whatever is left in open to sell.
Every step reads from the same style record and the same stock, so the rep at the show, the planner placing factory orders and the warehouse picking a Dick's order are all looking at one number. The footwear ERP page covers production, landed cost and factor financing in more depth.
Running sells through a handful of channel shapes, and each one orders differently. Run specialty books futures and fills in by size. Sporting goods and athletic footwear chains send EDI purchase orders with compliance rules attached. Your own site sells every day. All of it comes out of one stock pool.
| Channel | Examples | How orders usually arrive | What it asks of the brand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run specialty chains | Fleet Feet (including the former JackRabbit stores and Marathon Sports), Road Runner Sports | Futures through reps and at The Running Event; fill-ins by rep, portal or EDI depending on the account | Deep size and width runs on core models, fast fill-ins, clean model changeovers |
| Independent run specialty | Single and multi-door shops, including the 65 stores on the 2026 Best Running Stores list | Futures at TRE and with reps; reorders by rep, email or B2B portal | Small, frequent orders against open to sell, with terms and credit by account |
| Online run specialty | Running Warehouse | Purchase orders on the retailer's own program | Clean item data and accurate inventory by size and width |
| Sporting goods | Dick's Sporting Goods, Academy, Scheels, Big 5, REI | EDI 850 purchase orders | ASN windows, GS1-128 carton labels, routing guides, chargeback schedules |
| Athletic footwear chains and online | Foot Locker, Hibbett, Famous Footwear, Shoe Carnival, DSW, Zappos | EDI | Size-level item setup, ASN accuracy, each chain's own label and routing rules |
| Department store and DTC | Nordstrom, your Shopify site, Amazon | EDI, Shopify, Amazon | One available to sell, so the site can't oversell a wholesale commitment |
Fleet Feet is the largest run specialty chain in the US. It bought JackRabbit in December 2021 and Marathon Sports in June 2022, and it runs a mix of corporate and franchised stores. Each retailer page linked above covers that account's document set, labels and compliance rules.
Every width and size is its own sellable unit, with its own UPC, stock, open to sell and allocation. In AIMS360 a size scale holds up to 24 sizes, which covers a full half-size run in one width, and brands carrying two or three widths set up a scale per width, so the D and 2E versions of a model each carry their own UPCs and availability.
The math gets big fast. A men's road shoe in sizes 7 to 13 by half sizes, plus 14 and 15, is 15 sizes. Add a 2E and it's 30. Add a 4E in the core sizes and three colorways, and one model is past 100 SKUs before the women's version exists. Every one of those is a separate line on a futures order, a separate count in the warehouse and a separate line on a Dick's ASN.
Run specialty buys size runs, not single pairs, on futures. Prepacks set up against the size scale let a rep enter a run in one line, like a 1-2-2-2-1 across the middle sizes, while the stock stays as individual pairs that can be picked for an at-once fill-in the next week.
| Width | Men's | Women's |
|---|---|---|
| Narrow | B | 2A |
| Standard | D | B |
| Wide | 2E | D |
| Extra wide | 4E | 2E |
The Running Event (TRE) 2026 is December 1 to 3 at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. December 1 is the education day, the show floor runs December 2 and 3, and the Best Running Stores are honored at the Industry Awards Dinner on the evening of the 3rd. It's the annual trade show for the run specialty industry, and 2026 is its 20th year.
For a running brand, TRE is where next season goes in front of run specialty owners and buyers. The orders that come out of it are futures, and they only help if they reach the ERP intact. Reps write them in RemoteLink on an iPad against the line, the customer's pricing and the last downloaded open to sell, with or without Wi-Fi, and they import into AIMS360 on reconnect. Nobody retypes the show on the flight home.
AIMS360 will be at TRE 2026 in San Antonio. We're attending, not exhibiting, so book a time with our team and we'll meet you at the show. The full Running Event 2026 guide covers the day-by-day schedule, Switchback, the Best Running Stores and a brand's pre-show checklist.
Running brands come on board around the point where spreadsheets and an accounting package stop holding the operation together: futures get bigger than one person can track, a sporting goods buyer asks for EDI, or a second width doubles the catalog.
One built for footwear with a model year on top: widths and half sizes with a UPC for every width and size, model version and season on the style record, futures with ship windows beside at-once fill-ins, offline order writing for The Running Event, and native EDI into the sporting goods and athletic footwear chains running sells through. AIMS360 is a consumer brands ERP built on that model, with native EDI to 350+ retailers including Dick's Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, Hibbett, Academy, Scheels, REI, DSW and Zappos, and no per-document EDI fees. The footwear ERP page covers production, landed cost and factor financing.
Running apparel is activewear sold through run specialty: shorts with liners, half tights, singlets, jackets and sports bras in size runs, with fabric attributes on the style and core colors that replenish beside seasonal drops. AIMS360 runs it on the same catalog and stock pool as the shoes and socks, so a run specialty order for shoes, shorts and socks is one order, one allocation and one invoice. The activewear ERP page covers the fabric and replenishment side in depth.
Every width and size is its own sellable unit with its own UPC, stock, open to sell and allocation. A size scale in AIMS360 holds up to 24 sizes, which covers a full half-size run in one width, and brands carrying two or three widths set up a scale per width, so the D and 2E versions of a model each carry their own UPCs and availability. Prepacks set up against the size scale let a rep enter a futures size run in one line while the stock stays as individual pairs. See case packs, prepacks and bundles.
The new version is set up as its own style with its own UPCs, season and ship windows, and futures are booked against it while the outgoing version keeps selling. Open to sell shows what's left of the old model by size and width, so you can decide what to fill in, what to hold for closeout accounts and what to mark down, and sell-through reporting covers both versions.
Yes, in RemoteLink on an iPad. Order writing, line sheets, customer pricing and the last downloaded open to sell work offline, and orders carry start and completion dates, so a futures order written on the TRE floor keeps its ship window. Orders arrive in AIMS360 as imported on reconnect. Stock refresh and card deposits need a connection.
Dick's Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, Hibbett, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Scheels, REI, Big 5, DSW, Zappos, Famous Footwear, Shoe Carnival and Nordstrom, natively over EDI as part of the 350+ retailer network. Mapping is done in house to each retailer's own spec, with GS1-128 labels and the 856 from one scanned shipment and no per-document, per-transaction or kilocharacter fees.
No. Most independent run specialty stores order through reps, at TRE, by email or on a B2B portal, and those orders land in AIMS360 the same way an EDI purchase order does: as a sales order against the same open to sell. WebLink gives accounts a self-serve reorder portal on your own site, and JOOR, NuORDER, RepSpark and Faire orders import as AIMS360 sales orders.
That's the usual path for newer running brands, and the model AIMS360 is built for. Shopify orders, run specialty futures and fill-ins, retailer EDI and Amazon all draw on one available to sell pool with allocation rules, so a strong week on your own site can't oversell a futures commitment and a big wholesale order can't quietly empty the sizes your DTC customers reorder. See Shopify and Shopify Plus.
Yes. Gels, chews and drink mixes can be tracked by lot, with the expiration date held on the lot and expired stock moved to a hold location by workflow so it isn't picked. The wellness and supplements ERP page covers lot tracking in more detail.
Yes. AIMS360 will be at TRE 2026 in San Antonio, December 1 to 3. We're attending, not exhibiting, so book a time with our team and we'll set up a meeting at the show. The Running Event 2026 guide has the schedule.
Width, half-size and last management, pre-season wholesale, retailer EDI, production and DTC for shoe brands.
Fabric attributes, extended size runs and core replenishment beside seasonal drops.
Trail and outdoor crossover, the same sporting goods retailers, and Switchback buyers.
December 1 to 3, San Antonio: schedule, Switchback, Best Running Stores and a brand checklist.
Bring a model with two widths and a futures order to a demo. We'll write it offline the way a rep would at TRE, allocate it when product lands, and ship a Dick's purchase order and a run specialty fill-in from one pool. Or book a time to meet us in San Antonio, December 1 to 3.
