When you use your hard-earned cash to buy something new, especially something as necessary
as shoes, you want to get a fair deal.
Unfortunately, that's rarely - if ever - possible when it comes to footwear.
Here's how shoe stores are secretly scamming you out of hundreds of dollars each year.
You may not be familiar with the term "left digit-effect," but it's definitely happened
to you.
Stores that set prices to end in "99 cents" are using this strategy.
In a study for the Journal of Consumer Research, pens were priced at $2.00 and $3.99 - and
a staggering 44 percent of participants actually chose the higher-priced item - since it seemed
like the price difference was too little to matter.
Researchers explained,
"Shoppers pay a disproportionate amount of attention to the leftmost digits in prices
and [they] impact whether a product's price is perceived to be relatively affordable or
expensive."
Sounds like we need to brush up on our retail math.
"I'm concerned you've become obsessed with your shoes.”
“That's ridiculous.”
“When was the last time you took them off?”
“Why would I take them off?"
Sometimes you find a pair of shoes so exceptional that you're tempted to tell the sales associate:
"Shut up and take my money!"
Retail expert Matt Powell explained to Forbes that 85 percent of athletic shoes are "never
worn for their intended purpose."
While 15 percent of people may indeed be exercising in their sneakers, the rest of us buy them
as a fashion statement.
Powell wrote,
"Sneakers are the casual shoe of choice for Americans.
Every athletic shoe is a fashion shoe.
Retailers who can exploit the premium fashion edge will be the most successful."
This is the angle that sneaker manufacturers and retailers have been using for years - no
discounts, just loads of style.
And consumers are totally eating it up.
"I will walk on stilts if I could.
If they make stilt heels and they call them hilts, that's the shoe that I'll be…"
When Adidas released its first-ever line of Kanye West Yeezys in 2015, 9,000 pairs sold
out in just ten minutes, according to Vox.
And the "hype machine," as Complex dubbed it, explains why Yeezys have sold out every
year since.
"Come here.
These cost more than your life.”
Eric Myers, director at engineering firm INTEGRIS Group, told Complex:
"Retailers sell out of a limited supply of new releases, some going to collectors (who
post on Instagram creating envy, furthering the demand), some going to resellers (who
also post on […] social media to sell at increased price over retail)."
Major footwear companies are most certainly fooling us - and somehow we're not even mad
about it.
"It's about making a statement.”
“I think what we're all tryna do is leave a mark so the game will never be the same.”
In 2017, Time reported that the Oxford English Dictionary had updated a word with a new definition:
"Woke, adjective: Originally: well-informed, up-to-date.
Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in 'stay woke.'"
Of course, even before the dictionary recognized the change, people were indeed striving to
"stay woke" - and still are.
Major corporations are even getting involved in the movement - or at least trying to.
"I'm me.”
“I'm unique.”
“I'm woke.”
“Woke.”
“I'm woke.”
However, according to an article for The Washington Post by Boston College communications professor,
Michael Serazio, this might just be a scam to sell product - not woke-ness.
In reference to Nike's ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, Serazio explained,
"Getting us to think we're making a statement by buying Nike is the long con advertising
has played, and it has played it well."
Whether you agreed with the ad or torched your Air Jordans, Serazio guesses Nike got
exactly what it wanted: money.
Nike CEO Mark Parker told Yahoo,
"We’ve seen record engagement with the brand as part of the campaign."
"So don't ask if your dreams are crazy.
Ask if they're crazy enough.”
While sneakerheads and shoe fanatics everywhere are cool with spending top dollar for high-end
footwear, we need to know: are premium shoes really, well, premium?
Sneaker reseller Corgishoe explained to Complex,
"Sourcing different leathers and materials that have already been available the entire
time doesn't mean the quality has changed.
It's like saying a product is 'new and improved.'"
Calling the product better, even if its not, can create a total "frenzy."
Corgishoe claimed that even raising the manufacturer's suggested retail price - whether or not it's
warranted - can convince shoppers to buy because they'll assume the item is top of the line.
Yes, it's a trap, and all of us can't seem to help but fall into it!
Footwear corporations have figured out how to keep their costs low and, somehow, we've
decided it's worth it to pay even more.
As Corgishoe put it:
"The consumer in this market knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
We're gonna have to go home and cry into our thirteen hundred dollar Air Jordan 3's…
if that's indeed what they sold us.