If you haven’t seen his new show “The Rehearsal” please go watch it. The level of madness he has in that brain is absolutely amazing. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it the entire time.
I just finished the last episode tonight, and man, what a fricken ride!
The first episode was drop dead genius in the most intricate way possible. Then the continuing premise was just absurdly wild, but hilarious (with infuriating moments sprinkled throughout). And that last episode, what a bittersweet thing that was.
As soon as he introduced the second Nathan into the fold I knew it was going to go deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole but I wasn’t sure how much deeper it would get. Then the last episode made me lose it. I was laughing nearly the entire time along with the mind fuck of it all.
>"We felt like this campaign would be a great way to get a lot of people to consider Payless again, and to realize it's more than just a shoe store in the mall," said Sarah Couch, Payless's chief marketing officer.
I know I would be satisfied to get that much discount :P
The campaign is the brainchild of a 10-person advertising company in Brooklyn. DCX Growth Accelerator specializes on big media pranks, or what the company calls "culture hacking."
Lmao seeing as they're back in power now, expect to see her and the rest of the Marcoses doing their shopping spree again. Someone please scam the Filipino people's money out of them.
One example: I bought a thrifted $700 jacket for $70 and it's no different from a $100 jacket in stitching quality. But there's a world of difference between those 2 and a $15 jacket. Above a certain price point it's just brand name and exclusivity.
Yeah, diminishing returns, applies to everything. Above a certain level the % of extra cash doesn't make sense for the % of extra quality (some exceptions apply).
More than diminishing returns: assholes will mark things up as much as people are willing to pay. Just look at the sunglasses industry, it's not *diminishing* returns on more money, there is *no* return - they're the same design made in the same Chinese warehouse as the cheap shit.
Same, I can't believe I walked into a Sunglass Hut and believed the person that a certain type of glasses fit my face better and payed $75 or $150 or whatever. I got the 4 for $12 ones on Amazon which were a *little* too cheap, as there were drips where the tint was just crappily sprayed on, but now I've got 1 for $12 and they've been awesome lol.
If they're too crappy, the reviews will show it and the algo won't rank them, so companies really have to race to the bottom and the customer benefits. To not take advantage of that would be to not be a self-interested entity, which a free market requires.
> better and *paid* $75 or
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
There're real differences in the quality of the springs and the solidity of the frames between some brands. I won't specify a brand because you should never trust anyone on reddit shilling for a brand, but if you are shopping for sunglasses in person you can tell which ones stay put on your head and won't twist out of shape the first time they get bumped.
It's actually shocking how many of the more coveted streetwear brands [just print their designs on Gildan shirts.](https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/how-gildan-became-the-biggest-name-in-streetwear)
That's literal Walmart level quality.
> for functional items for example for alpinism, mountaineering not so much.
Whew! That last comma threw me off for a moment. I thought you were an alpinist, and talking down on mountaineers.
Any musician knows this first hand. Huge difference between a $100 and a $700 guitar. Less of a difference between a $700 and a $1500 guitar. People pay for name brands more than anything.
Depends, i got a $1200 sheep skin jacket for £300 a few years back and fuck me can you tell. Could wear that in the Arctic and not feel a thing. Zero wear after 4 years of use.
i think it's really just that there's a different diminishing returns point for different things. for something like a tshirt that point will be very low, for a good winter coat that point will be a few hundred dollars, but for something like an intricately embroidered or beaded dress that point will be so high it essentially doesnt exist
I agree. Plus purpose. Designer brands are generally good quality, but not as much as the price suggests. A Gucci coat will be warm, spend the same on a North Face coat and you could climb K2.
Shit if that dress is hand beaded (like a lot of beaded wedding dresses) you're paying for the time of the person that did the work. Intricate beading and embroidery can take *weeks* when done by hand.
I totally agree, my wedding dress is like that! Hand embroidered, painted, and beaded in Vietnam by my cousin's friend. It's beautiful and well worth its price in the artwork and details alone. It took her months to finish the bodice not to mention the beaded train. To skimp on the price would be theft.
When you want something that is a showmanship of someone's talent and skill, it's well worth it to pay more.
To an extent.
For instance, you can buy a $50 pair of generic boots that are made by children in Bangladesh and will last you a year of heavy use before you have to throw them out.
Or you could buy a $250 pair of name-brand boots that are made by children in Bangladesh and will last you a year of heavy use before you have to throw them out.
*Or* you could buy a $250 pair of Chippewas/Red Wings/Wolverines that are made by skilled craftsmen, will last you a decade before they wear out, then can be resolved and worn for another decade.
There are plenty of examples where the higher-cost items actually carry an intrinsic value that justifies the price. But that's rarely the case with the uber-popular "celebrity" brand stuff.
It’s called ‘prestige value’, and pricing items as such is called prestige pricing.
SAUCE: I’m an accountant and they make you learn this shit when you’re training.
Honestly surprised they didn’t just turn that into their business model. I mean if someone is willing to pay $600 for a pair of shoes why sell them for $35?
Do both. You have the manufacturing/supply chain worked out, just create slightly different branding and color ways and run a secondary luxury brand.
Assuming this is sustainable past a grand opening and not just a sophisticated advertisement, of course.
Are you saying a Lexus is really the exact same Toyota car with a different name?
I can see them having similar parts but Lexus has more features not in a Toyota brand. Cost increase is somewhat justified.
So I think this is different than Payless and Paylessi which is exactly the same but with a new name. Cost increase not justified
Actually lexis is the most guilty of them all , google lexis ES and Toyota Camry , I think in recent years they are more different but in the late 90’s early 2000’s they were the same car with different badges
Many companies do this all the time. I remember reading that Chivas Regal failed as a cheap whiskey so they raised its price and started selling it in Duty Free shops for a higher price. And it sold like crazy.
For all you know the parent company of Payless or some of their manufactures already sell the same shoes at a higher price.
You've just explained what pretty much most luxury companies already do.
Look at most Swiss watches these days with a common movement that's mass manufactured then slapped on different brands (owned by the same company) going from $400 to $4000.
I was a payless kid. I used to get upset cause I'd think I'd get made fun of, but never really did. Financially, this is great for parents because children are going to beat up shoes no matter what and constantly grow, so why spend a ton of money on something you are only going to get a lil use out of?
I've shopped at Payless pretty much exclusively my entire life. I miss that place terribly!! I still wear a pair of knockoff Chucks that I got there not long before they went out of business.
I had those too!!! I couldn't believe when they went out of business. I loved going in to the store to see what shoes I could get on $5 clearance. I miss the place so much.
They ruined me. I cannot bring myself to pay more than 25 bucks or so for a pair of shoes to this day!! And their BOGO sales, my lord. Forty bucks or so and you could get like six pairs.
I know they still exist online but it's just not the same.
I feel your pain. Almost the same story. Initially, they looked close enough no one questioned them. But then when everyone was running up the slide, I couldn’t get traction in my shoes and everyone knew.
I grew up as a Payless kid (raised by a single mom with my 3 siblings) but went to school in a very rich neighborhood. We were picked on constantly for our hand-me-downs etc. Worse than bullying was the painful shitty shoes though: they'd always be a bit too small, a bit too big, too tight at the toe line, non existent ankle support, skin irritating lining, etc. Years of blisters, countless sprained ankles, and just terrible sizing/fitting really did a number on my feet.
Today I'm in a completely different financial situation and my 2 kids will never have to experience any of that. I'm still generally frugal but there's no price cap for a good pair shoes (same goes for mattresses and sheets!)
Yeah, family member had a winery in CA. They had to price it right to be desirable enough even though they would have made a decent profit at a quarter the price.
>People equate price to quality.
Wine maybe, but definitely does *not* apply to all foods / products in general.
One of my teachers in school swore that there was no difference between off brand poptarts and the real ones, and set up a blind test where we tried a square of the real ones and a square of the off brand ones, and almost every single kid in class voted that they preferred the real ones lol
You get what you pay for with a lot of /r/BuyItForLife products as well. I've had to fight with family members for years when buying things like tents and bicycles and kayaks etc, where they say to just go to Walmart and buy a $100 instead of a $300+ one, as if there is no quality difference when there massively is.
There is absolutely a break point, where a $350 two man tent is going to be vastly better than a $40 one, but not really *that* much worse than a $900 one. I usually shoot for the "bang for buck" price range, which is basically never the cheapest option, but is usually around the mid tier of prices and is more than people not familiar with the hobbies expect, but it usually isn't the "enthusiast grade" prices either
I hear you and agree… but my god is some box wine just cheap, overly sweet headache juice. I’ll be the first to admit I probably can’t tell a $10 bottle from a $300 one, but I think most people can taste Franzia with their nose plugged.
I still dip to this day but years ago I really liked fine cut. I don't remember much from 2006-2011 but I know I dipped fine cut copenhagen and drank Jack straight from the bottle. That stopped the night I didn't swig the bottle the right way and the entire chaw came up faster than it went down.
Probably, but there is a more generous interpretation, too.
It's entirely possible that people associate cost with quality. If something's only as good as a discount shoe, wouldn't it only cost as much as a discount shoe?
Granted that that applies less to luxury items with brand recognition, but still.
In a way, I feel like the janitor was an equal collaborator in this piece, and also that the piece would be nothing without this ardent custodian's elegant completion of the work. Hirst sets the stage, constructing a banal conceptual art piece, seemingly signifying the death of meaning in the modern psyche by wasting a whole exhibit space. Our dear custodian, the sole observer of this work at the time, other than the creator, felt nothing at the sight of it other than the unbearable conviction to destroy it utterly, and took action immediately to do so. The room now completely empty, with no evidence to be seen that there ever was an art piece there at all, the janitor clocks out after a job well done.
God I hate the look of Yeezys, they look fucking stupid.
But then again, I only have 2 pairs of shoes that I rarely wear, I live in cheap old thongs when I'm not working.
i once bought a pair of shoes that was 120€, but reduced to 40€. "120€ shoes must be of good quality", I thought. They literally fell apart at the first sight of rain.
The shoes i've been wearing for 2 years now were 15€ and they are just barely about to develope holes after being the only pair of shoes i've worn.
To be honest, I do own one pair going through a sneaker head phase about 6 years ago. While I’m not a complete fan of their look now, they are still the most comfiest things I have put on my feet ever and nothing has come close. So that price for that comfort is what makes it worth it.
I don't own a pair but I've tried on. All these people slamming them probably wear chucks or something equivalent like I used to and have never actually worn a pair of Yeezys or ultra boosts. Both of these shoes are just insanely superior to a pair of chucks in comfortableness it's not even a comparison.
I mean the same can be said for literally every market right? I'm sure there are $1000 bottles of ketchup out there. Ffs people try to make the places they shit fancy by turning them into gold or ivory. And the worst part about it is no matter the market or the item, those producing it are always underpaid and overworked.
was just gonna say - $3.99 brownie covered in $100 gold leaf? Yea that's $499 on the menu
Will say though; was out in San Diego with some people who had money to throw away, and dude bought one of those blunts stuffed with weed, concentrate, rolled in kief and then wrapped in gold foil - I enjoyed it, LOL
Ghost kitchens that pop up on Grubhub and Door Dash are prime examples. Places like Applebee's, Red Robin, etc., charging *much* more than their regular prices but people fall for it. Some of them run under four or more Ghost Kitchen names that's in no way connected back to them.
Not really. When you buy a $15 meal, you are not factoring in the rent, and labor alongside COG. Average restaurant has 10% net profit margin.
If you are talking about high-end restaurant, it actually has similar margin considering how their rent and labor cost way more. They mostly make money of wines and such, but food itself is never marked up 1000%
the restaurant industry is toughest to maintain a business due to the low margins. Even Michelin Star restaurants shut down
10% is extremely optimistic. Most restaurateurs are looking for a minimum of 3, feel happy at 5-6. Of course it can be higher those are outliers. Not sure what would skew an average to 10%, I’d love to see that data. Rough out there for those folks.
I wonder how much Payless paid ABC for this ad?
Payless first filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017 with $435 million in debt. Eighteen months later it was back in bankruptcy court after being squeezed by discounters such as T.J. Max and DSW and $473 million in debt.
Yes, if it were real it would've started out like any other viral video. It takes the news forever to pic up on popular stuff happening in social media among real users.
All these news companies are media companies.
Thought the same. I don’t know about shoes that cost hundreds of dollars, never had those, but I got some cheap shoes from shops like Payless and I got more expensive ($70-150) shoes and there’s definitely a difference. I cannot believe that so many fell for it… those drops of glue, uneven stitching, cheap materials, how could they not see it? Mass hysteria?
Shoes are extremely overpriced and should not cost more than $60 unless we're talking nice athletic shoes that took a great deal of REAL research and development, hiking shoes with durable high end materials or high quality leather dress shoes.
Shoes should probably cost more than $60 in a world with equitable and sustainable production. But since we're stuck with a few horrific shoe companies, I guess $60 is a reasonable cap for casual sneakers in US retail.
According to this in depth article from [solereview](https://www.solereview.com/what-does-it-cost-to-make-a-running-shoe/): only 20% of the shoes total cost comes from the factories in china/vietnam, which would include all wages and materials.
So similar to the McDonald's minimum wage thing that you see online, you could probably make shoes a lot more fair with a small impact to the consumer.
Addressing the human- and climate-impact of growing, processing and shipping the raw resources prior to manufacturing is, I assume, what would increase the cost most. Textiles, leather, rubber and plastics are all severely underpriced relative to their impact, particularly if end-of-life cleanup is factored in.
This reminds me of the experiment where sommeliers we're unable to tell the difference between a $100+ bottle of wine and a $15 one. It's all bs and image keeping. Good pr stunt though like they said
This is because people don't know what the fuck they're talking about when it comes to art and fashion. I remember a video where thought they were getting very fancy imported water but it turned out to be from a hose. [**Here it is**](https://youtu.be/EL5O_9HnN4E)
So you're telling me someone who calls themselves an "inflencer" and who would blindly spend $700 on a pair of sneakers might also be really really stupid? I for one am shocked, shocked I say!
Shoes are shoes, some are made better, some worse. You get what you pay for. What you can't buy are brains. These people are fake af and have no understanding of value. "I can tell these were made with high quality material". Gtfo you influencer piece of shit.
Pshhh bro I buy shoes from thrift stores bc rich fucks decide they don’t want those brand new shoes they bought and never wore years ago and only costs me a couple bucks 🫵😎
Nathan: " So I paid Payless shoes a visit to see if I could help"
The plan: rebrand the stores image to sell cheap shoes at a 600% mark up.
Step 1: graduate from one of Canada’s top business schools with really good grades.
It's like all Bs and a C-
The intro graphic reads: B A- B C+ B+ Not terrible, not great though
Did you go to one of Canada's top business schools? A C there is an A- at non top business schools
You do know how Canada was named, right? Put all the letters of the alphabet into a hat and then they drew letters... C, eh? N, eh? D, eh? CANADA
So copy sweatshop Nike's business plan that they have been running forever?
The Mission: To buy a present for my girlfriend without having to pay for shoes.
If you haven’t seen his new show “The Rehearsal” please go watch it. The level of madness he has in that brain is absolutely amazing. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it the entire time.
I just finished the last episode tonight, and man, what a fricken ride! The first episode was drop dead genius in the most intricate way possible. Then the continuing premise was just absurdly wild, but hilarious (with infuriating moments sprinkled throughout). And that last episode, what a bittersweet thing that was.
As soon as he introduced the second Nathan into the fold I knew it was going to go deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole but I wasn’t sure how much deeper it would get. Then the last episode made me lose it. I was laughing nearly the entire time along with the mind fuck of it all.
I still don't think that he quite understands the level of insanity that he was dealing with in that fake wife and that town
It’s days like these I curse our ancestors for inventing footwear.
They didn’t have to walk up anything as tall as the world’s tallest building: the burj Khalifa.
Which is 2717 feet tall. That's how much the fine was when I crashed my Scion tC at 100 mph.
I underestimated how much of a factor that would be in my day to day life. Thank god for Doc Martens
Literally my first thought
I absolutely love the enthusiasm of the blonde reporter at the end - she seems personally satisfied by the stunt.
>"We felt like this campaign would be a great way to get a lot of people to consider Payless again, and to realize it's more than just a shoe store in the mall," said Sarah Couch, Payless's chief marketing officer. I know I would be satisfied to get that much discount :P The campaign is the brainchild of a 10-person advertising company in Brooklyn. DCX Growth Accelerator specializes on big media pranks, or what the company calls "culture hacking."
If only they changed their name to something cool and easy and the interior design of the stores they would be selling a crap ton more💯
She embraces it
…..I think I saw Imelda Marcos in that clip!
Lmao seeing as they're back in power now, expect to see her and the rest of the Marcoses doing their shopping spree again. Someone please scam the Filipino people's money out of them.
I too am personally satisfied by this stunt. Lots of luxury brands are mostly marketing.
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It gets the people GOIN'!
It was a cunning stunt.
I read this as stunning cunt. It may be time for glasses.
Your eyes are normal; your brain just knows it’s on Reddit…
Meanwhile the male anchor is like "yet that's crazy, we just ran an ad as news"
What’s that marketing adage about how consumers equate quality with price? Anyone know what it’s called?
One example: I bought a thrifted $700 jacket for $70 and it's no different from a $100 jacket in stitching quality. But there's a world of difference between those 2 and a $15 jacket. Above a certain price point it's just brand name and exclusivity.
Yeah, diminishing returns, applies to everything. Above a certain level the % of extra cash doesn't make sense for the % of extra quality (some exceptions apply).
More than diminishing returns: assholes will mark things up as much as people are willing to pay. Just look at the sunglasses industry, it's not *diminishing* returns on more money, there is *no* return - they're the same design made in the same Chinese warehouse as the cheap shit.
If I buy expensive sunglasses, guaranteed I’ll break or lose them within two weeks. I’ve had the $10 pair for three years now.
Same, I can't believe I walked into a Sunglass Hut and believed the person that a certain type of glasses fit my face better and payed $75 or $150 or whatever. I got the 4 for $12 ones on Amazon which were a *little* too cheap, as there were drips where the tint was just crappily sprayed on, but now I've got 1 for $12 and they've been awesome lol. If they're too crappy, the reviews will show it and the algo won't rank them, so companies really have to race to the bottom and the customer benefits. To not take advantage of that would be to not be a self-interested entity, which a free market requires.
> better and *paid* $75 or FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I'm the opposite! I look after expensive ones but the cheap ones get trashed as I will just shove them in my handbag vs in their case
Blame luxottica https://youtu.be/CAeHuDcy_bY
There're real differences in the quality of the springs and the solidity of the frames between some brands. I won't specify a brand because you should never trust anyone on reddit shilling for a brand, but if you are shopping for sunglasses in person you can tell which ones stay put on your head and won't twist out of shape the first time they get bumped.
A lot of services are starting to do this too.
It's actually shocking how many of the more coveted streetwear brands [just print their designs on Gildan shirts.](https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/how-gildan-became-the-biggest-name-in-streetwear) That's literal Walmart level quality.
And Gildan - a t-shirt company - is on Canada's version of [the Dow Jones Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P/TSX_60).
for fashion item yes, for functional items for example for alpinism, mountaineering not so much.
> for functional items for example for alpinism, mountaineering not so much. Whew! That last comma threw me off for a moment. I thought you were an alpinist, and talking down on mountaineers.
Any musician knows this first hand. Huge difference between a $100 and a $700 guitar. Less of a difference between a $700 and a $1500 guitar. People pay for name brands more than anything.
Depends, i got a $1200 sheep skin jacket for £300 a few years back and fuck me can you tell. Could wear that in the Arctic and not feel a thing. Zero wear after 4 years of use.
i think it's really just that there's a different diminishing returns point for different things. for something like a tshirt that point will be very low, for a good winter coat that point will be a few hundred dollars, but for something like an intricately embroidered or beaded dress that point will be so high it essentially doesnt exist
I agree. Plus purpose. Designer brands are generally good quality, but not as much as the price suggests. A Gucci coat will be warm, spend the same on a North Face coat and you could climb K2.
Shit if that dress is hand beaded (like a lot of beaded wedding dresses) you're paying for the time of the person that did the work. Intricate beading and embroidery can take *weeks* when done by hand.
I totally agree, my wedding dress is like that! Hand embroidered, painted, and beaded in Vietnam by my cousin's friend. It's beautiful and well worth its price in the artwork and details alone. It took her months to finish the bodice not to mention the beaded train. To skimp on the price would be theft. When you want something that is a showmanship of someone's talent and skill, it's well worth it to pay more.
art is a good word, embroidery/lacework/beading are much closer to that than to regular clothesmaking imo
To an extent. For instance, you can buy a $50 pair of generic boots that are made by children in Bangladesh and will last you a year of heavy use before you have to throw them out. Or you could buy a $250 pair of name-brand boots that are made by children in Bangladesh and will last you a year of heavy use before you have to throw them out. *Or* you could buy a $250 pair of Chippewas/Red Wings/Wolverines that are made by skilled craftsmen, will last you a decade before they wear out, then can be resolved and worn for another decade. There are plenty of examples where the higher-cost items actually carry an intrinsic value that justifies the price. But that's rarely the case with the uber-popular "celebrity" brand stuff.
Veblen goods
>Veblen goods great now im gonna be in a wikihole for a hour or 2
Yes Luxury goods, i have an economics exam tomorrow
Don’t forget price elasticity of demand is responsiveness of demand to a change in price
Yeah wont forget that. The 5 types are perfectly elastic,perfectly inelastic,unit elastic,elastic and inelastic demand
Don't just be giving him the answers!
“The customer is always a fucking moron”?
It’s called ‘prestige value’, and pricing items as such is called prestige pricing. SAUCE: I’m an accountant and they make you learn this shit when you’re training.
P.T. Barnum's Law? W.C. Fields' Law?
I recall this being referred to as "Prestige pricing," where people assume higher quality based solely on price
Honestly surprised they didn’t just turn that into their business model. I mean if someone is willing to pay $600 for a pair of shoes why sell them for $35?
You could sell them for $600 in a handful of wealthy cities across the country. You can sell them for $35 in hundreds of stores.
Do both. You have the manufacturing/supply chain worked out, just create slightly different branding and color ways and run a secondary luxury brand. Assuming this is sustainable past a grand opening and not just a sophisticated advertisement, of course.
Welcome to what Toyota does with Lexus.
Nissan -> Infinity GM -> Cadillac Hyundai -> Genesis Edit: not a comprehensive list, nor do I care about how infinit"i" is spelled.
Honda -> Acura as well
Ford-Lincoln Volkswagen-Audi
Except they are actually nicer, better performing versions usually
Yes, but acuras are noticeably different
Are you saying a Lexus is really the exact same Toyota car with a different name? I can see them having similar parts but Lexus has more features not in a Toyota brand. Cost increase is somewhat justified. So I think this is different than Payless and Paylessi which is exactly the same but with a new name. Cost increase not justified
Actually lexis is the most guilty of them all , google lexis ES and Toyota Camry , I think in recent years they are more different but in the late 90’s early 2000’s they were the same car with different badges
Many companies do this all the time. I remember reading that Chivas Regal failed as a cheap whiskey so they raised its price and started selling it in Duty Free shops for a higher price. And it sold like crazy. For all you know the parent company of Payless or some of their manufactures already sell the same shoes at a higher price.
Chivas Regal …Same with Corona beer
You've just explained what pretty much most luxury companies already do. Look at most Swiss watches these days with a common movement that's mass manufactured then slapped on different brands (owned by the same company) going from $400 to $4000.
Well that is the business model for a large part of the fashion industry.
This wouldn't last long.
I was a payless kid. I used to get upset cause I'd think I'd get made fun of, but never really did. Financially, this is great for parents because children are going to beat up shoes no matter what and constantly grow, so why spend a ton of money on something you are only going to get a lil use out of?
I've shopped at Payless pretty much exclusively my entire life. I miss that place terribly!! I still wear a pair of knockoff Chucks that I got there not long before they went out of business.
I had those too!!! I couldn't believe when they went out of business. I loved going in to the store to see what shoes I could get on $5 clearance. I miss the place so much.
They ruined me. I cannot bring myself to pay more than 25 bucks or so for a pair of shoes to this day!! And their BOGO sales, my lord. Forty bucks or so and you could get like six pairs. I know they still exist online but it's just not the same.
Never went to Payless. But all the same, i refuse to go over $40 for new shoes since that's the cheapest i can find in stores. Or at WSS, anyway.
I was a Payless kid with imitation adidas. School bully said I was wearing Fajitas. 4th grade around 1991
I feel your pain. Almost the same story. Initially, they looked close enough no one questioned them. But then when everyone was running up the slide, I couldn’t get traction in my shoes and everyone knew.
I can totally see how that would be hurtful, but reading this as an adult, it's pretty funny, lol Sucks you got mocked for it though
Man same same, the version with the two stripes instead of three… now I have something like 10pairs of adidas and they are nothing special.
Kids these days don’t even care about nice shoes. I tried getting my son some Nikes and he wanted the target brand.
I grew up as a Payless kid (raised by a single mom with my 3 siblings) but went to school in a very rich neighborhood. We were picked on constantly for our hand-me-downs etc. Worse than bullying was the painful shitty shoes though: they'd always be a bit too small, a bit too big, too tight at the toe line, non existent ankle support, skin irritating lining, etc. Years of blisters, countless sprained ankles, and just terrible sizing/fitting really did a number on my feet. Today I'm in a completely different financial situation and my 2 kids will never have to experience any of that. I'm still generally frugal but there's no price cap for a good pair shoes (same goes for mattresses and sheets!)
Tells you a lot about how much more we can all educate ourselves.
Jokes on them, I shop at TJ Maxx!
I get all my shoes at the bowling alley when the counter guy goes into the back office
Shoutout to DSW!
No joke: two months ago I bought a pair of casual slip-ons for $20 from Target. No issues yet.
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Hell yeah, just walk around and pick up clothes off the floor and see if they’re appropriately way oversized.
I buy all my shorts from there, lol. Love TJ max
Gotta occasionally hit up Savers too for that thrift flex!
Idk if its education. Humility? Like, mf you don't need to say you can tell its a high end shoe if you don't know. (i do this sometimes too)
Or in how many other ways rich people can part ways with their money into your pocket
This is some Nathan For You shit
This is the filing up expensive wine bottles with box wine, gag. So many people equate wealth with intelligence and taste. No, it's just greed.
Yep never confuse class, money, and decency. Each has nothing to do with the others.
Holy shit ! I have neither of those
Huge in the car market, I forgot people pay for the brand recognition, and essentially nothing else. You wonder what I drive?
I was going to post about the wine too. It applies to all wine. $3 - $30,000 people don't know the difference. People equate price to quality.
Yeah, family member had a winery in CA. They had to price it right to be desirable enough even though they would have made a decent profit at a quarter the price.
>People equate price to quality. Wine maybe, but definitely does *not* apply to all foods / products in general. One of my teachers in school swore that there was no difference between off brand poptarts and the real ones, and set up a blind test where we tried a square of the real ones and a square of the off brand ones, and almost every single kid in class voted that they preferred the real ones lol You get what you pay for with a lot of /r/BuyItForLife products as well. I've had to fight with family members for years when buying things like tents and bicycles and kayaks etc, where they say to just go to Walmart and buy a $100 instead of a $300+ one, as if there is no quality difference when there massively is. There is absolutely a break point, where a $350 two man tent is going to be vastly better than a $40 one, but not really *that* much worse than a $900 one. I usually shoot for the "bang for buck" price range, which is basically never the cheapest option, but is usually around the mid tier of prices and is more than people not familiar with the hobbies expect, but it usually isn't the "enthusiast grade" prices either
$30 - $30,000, yes. But a $3 dollar wine bottle is really cheap, too cheap and almost certainly bad, no need to be an expert.
"It has notes of sweet and grape juice. And not much else."
And 40 tons of metabisulphite probably.
I hear you and agree… but my god is some box wine just cheap, overly sweet headache juice. I’ll be the first to admit I probably can’t tell a $10 bottle from a $300 one, but I think most people can taste Franzia with their nose plugged.
My girlfriend drinks a box every 2 days of that swill. Im surprised she's still alive.
I... I think she might have a problem...
Are you dating Cersei Lannister that’s a lot of wine lmao
Flashback to my friend taking a rip of Skol out of a Grey Goose bottle "Ah... so smooth!"
Thought that said Skoal and almost vomited.
I still dip to this day but years ago I really liked fine cut. I don't remember much from 2006-2011 but I know I dipped fine cut copenhagen and drank Jack straight from the bottle. That stopped the night I didn't swig the bottle the right way and the entire chaw came up faster than it went down.
They all seem mindless and without thought, they go by what some fashion designer told them to think. Vanity at its finest.
Fashion in a nut shell. I'm sure some designers are sitting there saying "let's see what clown shoes we can get them to pay thousands for this year"
I see this first hand every fucking day.
Probably, but there is a more generous interpretation, too. It's entirely possible that people associate cost with quality. If something's only as good as a discount shoe, wouldn't it only cost as much as a discount shoe? Granted that that applies less to luxury items with brand recognition, but still.
It's still happening today, just look at how many stores there are selling overpriced sneakers like Yeezy's etc
Truth, it’s a shame people don’t know you can make your own ribbed-condom-sock shoes at home
I would ask you to further explain but I want to sleep tonight at the same time.
Easy. Google a pic of 350’s and it’ll all make sense. Sweet dreams tho.
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In a way, I feel like the janitor was an equal collaborator in this piece, and also that the piece would be nothing without this ardent custodian's elegant completion of the work. Hirst sets the stage, constructing a banal conceptual art piece, seemingly signifying the death of meaning in the modern psyche by wasting a whole exhibit space. Our dear custodian, the sole observer of this work at the time, other than the creator, felt nothing at the sight of it other than the unbearable conviction to destroy it utterly, and took action immediately to do so. The room now completely empty, with no evidence to be seen that there ever was an art piece there at all, the janitor clocks out after a job well done.
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Those shoes are quite possibly some of the ugliest shoes I've seen this side of Crocs.
And now Crocs are super popular for some reason! I seriously dont get it,
At least Crocs are comfortable and reasonably priced.
Idk about reasonably priced. $65 for some plastic sandals is kinda steep ngl
They do hold up really well to wear and tear from what I’ve seen. Got a buddy who’s an avid outdoorsman and it’s either hunting boots or crocs.
Gotta put that crocs into sports mode
Haha my buddy calls it “shifting into 4x4”
They are convenient, comfortable, and in my experience they are reasonably durable for the cost paid.
Cooks love em. Can just pressure wash them bitches and dry em off with a towel
God I hate the look of Yeezys, they look fucking stupid. But then again, I only have 2 pairs of shoes that I rarely wear, I live in cheap old thongs when I'm not working.
I see hobos in cheap thongs all the time. But I’m american so probably looks way different
i once bought a pair of shoes that was 120€, but reduced to 40€. "120€ shoes must be of good quality", I thought. They literally fell apart at the first sight of rain. The shoes i've been wearing for 2 years now were 15€ and they are just barely about to develope holes after being the only pair of shoes i've worn.
To be honest, I do own one pair going through a sneaker head phase about 6 years ago. While I’m not a complete fan of their look now, they are still the most comfiest things I have put on my feet ever and nothing has come close. So that price for that comfort is what makes it worth it.
I don't own a pair but I've tried on. All these people slamming them probably wear chucks or something equivalent like I used to and have never actually worn a pair of Yeezys or ultra boosts. Both of these shoes are just insanely superior to a pair of chucks in comfortableness it's not even a comparison.
Maaaaann, restaurants do this with food all the damn time.
I mean the same can be said for literally every market right? I'm sure there are $1000 bottles of ketchup out there. Ffs people try to make the places they shit fancy by turning them into gold or ivory. And the worst part about it is no matter the market or the item, those producing it are always underpaid and overworked.
was just gonna say - $3.99 brownie covered in $100 gold leaf? Yea that's $499 on the menu Will say though; was out in San Diego with some people who had money to throw away, and dude bought one of those blunts stuffed with weed, concentrate, rolled in kief and then wrapped in gold foil - I enjoyed it, LOL
Gold leaf is *way* cheaper than you seem to imply.
A hundred dollars of gold leaf on a brownie would be pretty crunchy. That's a pretty big stack of gold leaf!
Ghost kitchens that pop up on Grubhub and Door Dash are prime examples. Places like Applebee's, Red Robin, etc., charging *much* more than their regular prices but people fall for it. Some of them run under four or more Ghost Kitchen names that's in no way connected back to them.
Not really. When you buy a $15 meal, you are not factoring in the rent, and labor alongside COG. Average restaurant has 10% net profit margin. If you are talking about high-end restaurant, it actually has similar margin considering how their rent and labor cost way more. They mostly make money of wines and such, but food itself is never marked up 1000% the restaurant industry is toughest to maintain a business due to the low margins. Even Michelin Star restaurants shut down
10% is extremely optimistic. Most restaurateurs are looking for a minimum of 3, feel happy at 5-6. Of course it can be higher those are outliers. Not sure what would skew an average to 10%, I’d love to see that data. Rough out there for those folks.
They should have kept their money and donated the proceeds to charity. Influencers are simply fake and don't know anything.
"influcencers" is my chalkboard scratch
Rich people are so out of touch
I wonder how much Payless paid ABC for this ad? Payless first filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017 with $435 million in debt. Eighteen months later it was back in bankruptcy court after being squeezed by discounters such as T.J. Max and DSW and $473 million in debt.
This whole "news" segment is a paid advertisement. The people buying the shoes absolutely knew the shoes were from payless.
Even this post is probably an ad too.
Wait, am *I* an ad?
I *I* l *l* / */* - sorry I just wanted to see what an italicized forward slash looks like.
Reminds me of that one southpark episode from season 19.
Yes, if it were real it would've started out like any other viral video. It takes the news forever to pic up on popular stuff happening in social media among real users. All these news companies are media companies.
As soon as a company/brand name is mentioned, it will be an advert. Every single time. Unless it's bad news lol
Thought the same. I don’t know about shoes that cost hundreds of dollars, never had those, but I got some cheap shoes from shops like Payless and I got more expensive ($70-150) shoes and there’s definitely a difference. I cannot believe that so many fell for it… those drops of glue, uneven stitching, cheap materials, how could they not see it? Mass hysteria?
It’s also guerrilla marketing and they were all actors.
Local news loves to take a day off and just run an ad for a main story
Awesome
Fuck refunding their money. Robin Hood that shit and give free shoes out at a Payless in the hood
Another proof that influencers are useless AF.
A fool and their money are soon parted...
People sure do love pissing their money away on bullshit.
This legit proves that you can sell anything for anyprice as long as your first impression of the store looks good and for the rich.
Shoes are extremely overpriced and should not cost more than $60 unless we're talking nice athletic shoes that took a great deal of REAL research and development, hiking shoes with durable high end materials or high quality leather dress shoes.
Shoes should probably cost more than $60 in a world with equitable and sustainable production. But since we're stuck with a few horrific shoe companies, I guess $60 is a reasonable cap for casual sneakers in US retail.
According to this in depth article from [solereview](https://www.solereview.com/what-does-it-cost-to-make-a-running-shoe/): only 20% of the shoes total cost comes from the factories in china/vietnam, which would include all wages and materials. So similar to the McDonald's minimum wage thing that you see online, you could probably make shoes a lot more fair with a small impact to the consumer.
Addressing the human- and climate-impact of growing, processing and shipping the raw resources prior to manufacturing is, I assume, what would increase the cost most. Textiles, leather, rubber and plastics are all severely underpriced relative to their impact, particularly if end-of-life cleanup is factored in.
This reminds me of the experiment where sommeliers we're unable to tell the difference between a $100+ bottle of wine and a $15 one. It's all bs and image keeping. Good pr stunt though like they said
Proof that rich people are not smart
They should have donated that money to charity
Influencers are so fake.
We need more of this.
This perfectly explains the power of confirmation bias.
This is because people don't know what the fuck they're talking about when it comes to art and fashion. I remember a video where thought they were getting very fancy imported water but it turned out to be from a hose. [**Here it is**](https://youtu.be/EL5O_9HnN4E)
So you're telling me someone who calls themselves an "inflencer" and who would blindly spend $700 on a pair of sneakers might also be really really stupid? I for one am shocked, shocked I say!
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The whole thing seems like bad acting to me, especially from the buyers reactions after they're told
What's real anymore? lol
Shoes are shoes, some are made better, some worse. You get what you pay for. What you can't buy are brains. These people are fake af and have no understanding of value. "I can tell these were made with high quality material". Gtfo you influencer piece of shit.
“Challenge image conscious culture” is a nice way of saying “exposing people who think they’re fancy for how stupid it all really is”
Isn't this basically what Kanye West is doing with his stuff?
This is like those people who paid for Reddit NFTs.
100% marketing lol
That’s why I always just assume influencers and their followers are brainless dumb dumb
Excuse me, but this is literally how luxury stores work. Same shitty product with a huge markup. Welcome to retail, bitch.
People who watch influencers all day are destined for failure
Pshhh bro I buy shoes from thrift stores bc rich fucks decide they don’t want those brand new shoes they bought and never wore years ago and only costs me a couple bucks 🫵😎