Just Do It: Grab Your Nike's (NKE) Before They Become More Expensive

Better grab your Air Jordan's while they're on the cheap.

Following their third quarter earnings miss and tepid future orders number, Nike (NYSE: NKE) is planning to "sharply" increase prices on their products stemming from higher input costs.

On their conference call following Q311 earnings yesterday, Nike CFO Donald Blair noted on the call that "we intend to raise prices across a wide range of footwear and apparel styles to help mitigate the overall impact of higher input costs. In the past, we've taken a fairly surgical approach to pricing. Beginning in spring 2012, we'll take more significant price increases across a broader range of styles."

CEO Mark Parker also commented that "we're using our size and scale to leverage our supply chain and negotiate costs to help maintain profitability in challenging environments...We optimize how we design and develop our products, how we price them given current market conditions and how we present them to the consumer."

Both commented on margin pressures for the foreseeable future from increasing oil, cotton, labor and air-freight costs. Blair said that the company will expect "these headwinds will continue through most of FY12."

Shares of Nike fell in after-hours trading, and are currently down 4.7% ahead of the bell today. Last trade was at $80.85 after-hours, with a current bid of $79.50.

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