The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource
theoutline.com
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The end of Payless is just another private equity story, and poor kids will just get a smaller variety of shitty shoes from WalMart, TJMaxx, or Dollar General.
The majority of us get screwed in other ways, as we pay more for increasingly lousy footwear.
Also, should mention TJMaxx has decent stuff. Never bought shoes there but I get pants, shirts, and random stuff for the house. My wife gets plenty of clothes there though.
I think they were worth their cost.
I upgraded to DSW when I could afford (or cost-justify) it, and mainly for dating appearance reasons.
Currently, I have to order running shoes, to get the right size&color of a model I know works for me (local running shop sadly doesn't carry it), but the durability has gotten so poor that I contacted the well-regarded brand corporate.
I buy shoes that look like leather loafers but as basically as floppy as slippers. This is exactly what I want and need. They are respectable enough to wear in work situations but I can also use them for martial arts or any other physical activity. Basically, they're nearly as good as barefoot, which isn't practical for various reasons.
I find it ironic that a lot of folks buy $120 "toe shoes" when they learn of the value of nearly barefoot ... when they could just buy the proper cheap shoes instead.
(Edit, I've studied bodywork, balance system and such. The arch supports and such of "good shoes" are arguably actually back for most people, interfering with the natural rhythm of walking, etc).
https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22toe+shoes%22+&ie=utf-8&o...
Tell me about it. I can usually find name-brand running shoes for under $80 on clearance, but many models are just garbage that will fall apart after a few dozen miles. La Sportiva or New Balance? Mostly good. Salomon? Hit or miss.
As an aside, Payless Shoes also has bittersweet memories for me. When I was young, I didn't fully comprehend what shopping there meant because I was in my own filter bubble -- growing up in the American midwest. Now, I feel conflicted and judged and out-of-place after having a few lucky breaks that enabled me to break into tech and live in the Valley. It didn't even click to me until recently the real connotations of shopping at these kinds of places. I really appreciate being able to shop at Nike, and wish I could go back in time and keep some of my original self-confidence of being able to wear Payless Shoes in a tier-one city free of judgment.
There have been a few of these, lately. I'm having a hard time telling if the debt PE loaded the firms with is the problem, or if it only sped up the inevitable. PE doesn't buy companies because they're doing well; it buys them because they're failing.
Funny. And if I had to bet on one term that could completely change the materials of which consumer products are made, possibly sparking a consumer materials revolution, "off-gassing" would be it. Once you learn about it, it's always there, nagging you to ventilate or throw out.
In fact I'd say that along with terms like "gaslighting" and "toxic relationship" enjoying recent prominence, times have never been better for terms capturing the psychological rejection of toxins driving humans headlong toward life change.
Actually, it's the Nikes that wear out much faster, it seems.
PS:(edit) I walk around a decent amount and even go running 6 to 9 miles per week. Even a super cheap pair of running shoes won't show any holes in it for 4+ years at least. The Nike ones I had started falling apart in just in less than 2 years.
And yes, I do have about 10 pairs, but tend to stick to 4-5 pair at a time time. and I don't throw them away until the wear is so low that an actual hole forms or even multiple holes/rips form. most of time just get some plimsolls, those tend to last forever.
And don't get me started on the poor state of common flipflop
Yes, the store left, the mall was abandoned, it got leveled, a new building was placed there and that was a few years ago. I still have the damn sandals. I wore them yesterday.
I tried moving on from them around 2012 using a pair of sandals from DSW and those went to tatters so I went into my closet and brought the old clarks back out and now years later they still work.
I should go and hunt out another pair.
There should be a review website with an incredibly high barrier to entry that is designed to make sure there's completely unsolicited reviews for products. Avoiding abuse and spam is definitely hand-waving here but that site would be great.
I picked up this[1] pair in particular for about $35 3-4 years ago, and they've been my daily drivers ever since due to blending in well with pretty much anything short of formal business attire. And despite being pretty brutal with my shoes in general, these essentially look the same as they did a month or so after getting them.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/ECCO-Mens-Soft-Fashion-Sneaker/dp/B00...
In the early 90’s they were $18 and made in USA. Within 1 year they went to $40 and made in China.
I was on the train with my girlfriend (att) and she deliberately stamped on my foot. Of course, I was quite confused; however, she explained that my shoes looked too new and thus needed to be dirtied up a bit.
Although if you live in a place with tons of really steep hills like San Francisco, 3 months is probably par for the course.
I suppose you could also have be having them repaired, but cheap shoes don't tend to be very repairable.
I am tired of cheaply made, crap quality, no padding, abysmal traction shoes that cost so much money. At least when I pay the $20-$30 for a pair, my expectations meet the experience.
Because they spend a tremendous amount of money marketing shoes to consumers.
The cost may seem a bit much at first, but compare it to buying a cheap pair once every couple of months.
Shoes really are one of the few things in life you shouldn't skimp on.
As an aside, price isn't the only import factor in buying quality shoes. Chippewa are handmade in the US, and it shows. I also bought a pair of relatively expensive Timberland boots for about $250. They were made in China, and the upper lining of the boot came off in less than 6 months. It seems all I paid for was the name.
I've also become a loafers fan. In US fashion, at least, a good pair of black or dark brown loafers can be worn all the way up to business-formal, to weddings, funerals, et c., but also dressed down to business- or smart-casual, and if they get beat up they just become toss-on-and-go shoes for any occasion, even if it's just mowing the lawn. Again, they last a good long time if they're US- or European-made. I don't think either beats cheap sneakers for price over a lifetime, but then you get whatever benefit a nicer look and a little more formality-range gets you from going for well-crafted leather, and they aren't so much more expensive considering that and how long they last. Sure $200+ for a pair of shoes is a bit of a shock at first, but when they're in your rotation for 10-20 years it seems less crazy.
I've found a pair of Asics that have decent traction for basketball. I wore those for years, and then they turned into just my running shoes for years, and I'm still wearing them 6 years later for hiking.
Boots protect against minor injuries and frostbite to shins, calves, toes, soles and ankles and reinforce the same if you do tear something and end up having to limp for miles (splint or not).
Running shoes are garbage long before they fall apart or get holes in them. Perhaps you're lucky, but I can't imagine running in my shoes for more than about 350 miles. Nothing feels better than the first run in new running shoes.
Also play various cutting/running sports (soccer, ultimate) and don't notice much of a difference between old and new shoes. My current turf shoes are about eight years old, with multiple games per week over most of that period.
Yup. That's exactly it. ( I wore my fair share of really crappy gym-class shoes, too.)
It's why Walmart is beloved in many of the small southern towns where I grew up. Sure it relentlessly exploited poor people elsewhere, but when you're poor yourself you can't help but be grateful for its low prices. And the belief that finally, finally someone is giving you the good end of that deal is terribly reassuring-- like maybe, for once, someone has your back.
This, of course, quickly assumes a political dimension. At the time conservatives (many of whom now back Trumpian protections, how times change) railed against the so-called "latte liberals" who supposedly fought Walmart from the comfort of their Mercedes-- not that anyone knew one of them personally, of course. And we, the rank and file, ate it up: we needed our cheap shoes, our cheap food, etc.
Now, as a liberal, when I hear people advocating for the breakup of Amazon or Google, I can't help but think back to how I would have felt about that when I was poorer, and when I didn't have the option of simply paying more for a better cause. I think I would have fought quite hard to keep my costs low, possibly to the point of voting against many of my other interests or beliefs. And especially in this era of polarization and high-stakes politics, I'm not sure it's a good idea to bet on people in general viewing that differently.
From an electoral perspective it's counterfactual: my family in the midwest have roughly 1.5x the electoral power I do. Historically speaking this has led two democrats in my lifetime to win the popular vote but lose the presidential election. So I don't think there's an issue with those voices being unheard in elections-- quite the opposite in fact.
On the other hand, I see where you're coming from. The loci of money and power in the United States speak loudly and listen poorly to the half of us that see stars at night. I think this has been to conservatives' advantage, although that seems to have more to do with preexisting cultural affinity than shared policy goals.
I'm not sure that the average voter really considers the electoral college today. Voter comprehension of it has historically been very low, at least. But you're right that many non-swing-state voters stay home after (correctly) figuring out that their votes are meaningless.
In fact, states aren't even required to put the presidential on the ballot at all. States are allowed to choose their electors by any method the state legislature decides on.
When you balance representation against population, the gulf is vast and only growing. This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Ignore it at your peril.
Exactly!
People act like our[0] Constitution is some inviolable, sacrosanct tome with words that must be revered and held close, unchanging and unchanged forever. Yet they seem to skip that we've modified the thing TWENTY EIGHT TIMES and that every Much Revered Framer(tm) anticipated that we'd not only change it as often as needed, we would very likely scrap the whole thing and do it again every few generations.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that mandates that the compromises, adjustments, and tweaks our nation's founders made must persist beyond tomorrow, except our own collective will to not bother with or to actively resist change. It's why I very much enjoy hearing at least one of the major parties actively talk about modification of the Electoral College or the makeup of the Supreme Court or how the legislative bodies of our nation operate. Maybe their ideas are good ones, maybe they're not, but the one thing we MUST NOT DO is shy away from a willingness to keep our country's governance current.
0 - By "our," I mean the collection of people who are citizens of the United States of America. Other nations can and do amend their nations' basic laws as they see fit.
That's flowery language to disguise what was essentially a pact between wealthy industrialists and slavers.
It's long past time to dismantle that "compromise."
It's been effective. If presidential elections were just driven by popular vote candidates would only campaign in the top population centers. Entire regions of the country would be ignored.
This is definitely 100% false; this goes against the mathematical population distribution of the United States. The top 100 biggest cities in the United States combined only make up less than 20% of the population.
But even if it were true, it's not any different than the current status quo where candidates simply only campaign in "swing states," ignoring the vast majority of the rest of the Unites States. In fact, it would be better, because more Americans live in population centers than they do swing states.
https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k?t=108
The other problems:
Many people who live in solidly blue or solidly red states don't even bother voting for president - they know their vote doesn't matter. I know this because I've literally heard people say it.
This it not even considering electoral college also entirely ignores 4 million Americans because they live in territories, not states.
There is an effect going the other direction that benefits California, and in fact is why there is a fight going on at the Supreme Court. Voters in those rural states are underrepresented due to non-citizens being counted to apportion the representatives. California has something like a couple dozen extra representatives from that.
The political system makes it pretty easy to ignore the liberal coastal areas. Republicans benefit enormously from the unevenness of the Senate, House seat allocations, and the Electoral College. And then in the states they control, they put their finger on the scale via gerrymandering. Democrats can ignore the coasts too because who else are they going to vote for?
Though the greatest irony of all is that those rural and poor voters in the flyover states are also ignored in terms of their real needs. Their party tosses them cultural red meat regularly, but defunds the things they need: schools, roads, and various safety net programs which are often the only thing keeping the rural poor afloat.
As long as Republican voters care more about abortion and gay marriage (and I guess transpeople using the bathroom now), they will not find economic solutions.
These are really fundamental differences, particularly in the area of taxes (and that’s true not just for Sweden and Spain, but most European countries). In Europe, there is an expansive welfare state with lots of benefits for the middle class, but the middle class are also the ones that pay for it, through high payroll and sales taxes. In the US, replacing sales taxes with a 20% VAT (the OECD average) would raise an extra $700 billion according to CBO estimates. Enough to pay for socialized health care and education. But nobody on the left is proposing that. Every proposal focuses on raising taxes on corporations and the rich to pay for middle class benefits.
The people here aren't stupid. Brownback's approval was in the mid 20's by the time he left. His policies are deeply unpopular. But, they keep voting for the party that originally pushed such disastrous policies, and is now trying to push them through again, despite popular opposition. I honestly don't understand it.
Perhaps they really do think guns are more important than the health of their community. Though even that makes no sense because state level Democrats are as pro-gun as the Republicans, and national level Democrats are zero threat.
I have no idea why you bundle up schools, roads, and social programs into "liberal sentiment". Guns may be loved, but they're not going to educate their children. And for many of the people in my rural district, what's putting food on the tables is the subsidized food programs and other aid offered. No arms manufacturing jobs and few resource extraction jobs here.
> predatory capitalist system
They don't like hearing this, either. The concept of hard work getting them ahead is one of the few things blue collar workers hold on to. (It is also not necessarily true as you state.)
It's very clear that Walmart drives down wages among suppliers. Workers clearly don't earn a ton of money. But do shoppers benefit? And are employees worse off relative to their alternatives? I would be surprised to find out that the first was the case, and curious-how-but-not-quite-surprised about the second.
Are they though? Walmart has a negative impact on local small businesses but is it made up for by making goods available at prices they would otherwise not be leading to increased purchasing power?
As someone who grew up somewhere that local authorities were able to exert control over who did and didn't do business I am all for the "race to the bottom" that high volume, low margin big box stores represent.
I'm not going to let you assert this without challenge.
First, durable goods are probably more expensive. For example, old lawnmowers lasted forever--WalMart ones die in a couple seasons.
Second, if a big box store wipes out local jobs that pay better, how much do prices have to be reduced to make up for that? People at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder spend and have a very high economic multiplier for how much their money drives other money. You don't have to lose many decent jobs in a 50,000 person town if most of them are 2x to 3x multipliers to really cripple the economy.
Third, is WalMart actually cheaper? Big box stores are really good at optimizing prices such that you get one great deal, but lose just a little on everything else. Normally, people put up with it because WalMart is the only choice or is a very convenient single stop.
The local hardware store sells the same or close to the same value engineered Chinese lawnmower using a B&S clone engine and a steel deck. Walmart sells it for $119 when it's in season and more than that the rest of the time (I wanna say $140ish but I'm not sure). The hardware store can't touch the sale price. I bought a lawnmower last summer so I'm very aware of what durable they cost at the various outlets. Old lawnmowers lasted forever because all the ones that are left are high end aluminum deck models that never got ridden hard and put away wet (which is why I got one of them for free on Craigslist instead of buying one). You see a similiar pattern with other durable goods. The model of big box stores is low margin, high volume. They sell some stuff that's value engineered to within an inch of it's life (a lot of the stuff at Harbor Freight comes to mind) but they don't generally engage in bait and switch. If they sold goods that always failed to live up to what people were expecting they wouldn't still be in business.
>Second.
Walmart by itself is not going to wipe out your town. If Walmart and the other big box stores wipe out the town it's because there was no real economic activity going on there and everyone else was just rent seeking to sap the money from the few parties engaged in actual economic activity (like a plumber that jacks up his rates when working on rental income properties in a tourist town). Nothing of value is lost in that case. Complaining that Walmart kills a town is like complaining that more automation kills a factory town, sure it might be technically true but if increased efficiency is a threat to your economic survival then you were already dead and just didn't know it.
>Third, is WalMart actually cheaper?
It's very, very rare that I find that they're not. On groceries their selection seems to be pretty poor but you can get staples pretty damn cheap. I grew up in a shithole where you always had to watch what you were paying or you could get screwed hard so I tend to really watch trends. Big box stores tend to have the cheapest prices broadly. Small businesses will occasionally have great prices on a few things but prices in general will be higher. The value add of small businesses is flexibility and service that is only workable at their scale, not pricing.
These types of goods are still around today and priced the same when adjusting for inflation. Commercial and industrial buyers are their main market.
The best washing machines and vacuum cleaners aren't made by your brands you find in basic stores, they're at the specialty shops or catalogs. The Internet enables you to find out what they are and where to get them. They're just REALLY expensive compared to the cheap, Chinese-made alternatives today. But they're still around and the same real price as before. It's just that people race to the bottom and prioritize price first.
> is WalMart actually cheaper
This is pretty indisputable. I've done a lot of shopping there when I was poor and the differences are enormous, especially on boxed and cheap food staples.
I'm male, and an equivalent of this would happen in high school in my country as well (late '90s). What is it about human society that causes others to try to bully someone on the basis of their consumption choices? Kids have been brand-aware for generations now, but to use these arbitrary perceptions of brand value to shame someone who doesn't have access to them, is beyond grotesque.
Part of me wants to buy walking shoes over the $75 mark to figure out if they last longer, but the other part feels that at that price point, they aren't designed to last any longer than the sub-$50 brands.