Crocs-Buying Population Comes to Its Senses

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Our long national nightmare might be ending: NASDAQ sales of Crocs Inc, the manufacturer of those ubiquitous plastic ventilated clogs, are down for the first time since 2006. It turns out that consumers don't really care whether their clunky comfort footwear comes branded with the official Crocs name, so the $5 knock-off clogs at Wal-Mart have eaten a hole in the business. (Which actually suggests that people are still wearing hideous clogs, just less expensive ones, so maybe the decade's worst fad isn't over after all.) [Bloomberg]