![]() The problem is when almost all you do is hunting for sales and shopping discounts. I know you readers appreciate these articles, and I’m not late on accommodating this. I can surely understand that grabbing a bargain and getting stuff heavily discounted is attractive, and I’m surely part of this whole thing with highlighting various sales in articles here on Shoegazing. The retailers and brands part in this (like how brands undercut retailers with offering heavy discounts when they sell direct to consumers, discounts that are very hard for a retailer to keep up with) is for another article. As mentioned before, retailers and brands have their part in being on this route, but to a large extent it’s due to customer behaviour and trying to match this, and that’s what I focus on today. Not least with the increasing competition, it’s become a solution many cater towards. But what I’m talking about in this article was there already before Covid hit. The fact that many retailers and brands have been forced to run sales simply to maintain their liquidity, as the whole world halted in uncertainty and change of life (home interiors and similar boomed, but again, that’s for another blog to cover). The amount of sales of quality shoes have increased steadily through the years, and totally boomed now during the pandemic. ![]() Today things are totally different, as all of you know. I remember when I started Shoegazing in 2012, there of course were sales on welted shoes here and there, especially during the two sales seasons, but they were rather an exception than rule for most retailers and brands, and the sales that did run usually consisted of a limited number of models and sizes. Also the status for many of these brands were high, in some cases demand were bigger than access. Since this is a niche where most brands don’t work with seasonal collections, but rather a bunch of models that are part of a more or less permanent collection, there’s not the same “need” for sales to clear out stuff that won’t be produced again and/or that won’t sell since they are “out of fashion”, as for many other segments within clothing and footwear. ![]() Looking at the classic quality shoes segment, say, a decade ago or so, things were rather different. Folks express how they are getting a bunch of pairs on various sales since “the deals was too good to pass on”, while expressively saying that they really were after something else. When one talk about coming purchase it’s mentioned that “I will see what will be part of the sale from xxx this autumn and get that”. One compare one brands RRP (recommended retail price) with another ones sales price. Nowadays in discussions in social media, on websites or forums, when certain brands are mentioned folks state the sales prices as more or less their “actual price”. It’s certainly not exclusive for this section of products, but, well, that’s what I write about here, so. Other examples of this mentality is shown all the time. Said by the same persons who waited for the coming sales or discount code-campaigns to get a hold of their AS pairs. So – one thought it was sad that a company went bust and couldn’t understand why their shoes weren’t made more available, they were such a great value. Then as discussions went on, it became clear that a lot of these guys, in fact most of them, had gotten their Sargents at various sales and campaigns, often from the British retailer who was sort of the main retailer of AS Exclusive and also Handgrade shoes. Many shoe lovers shared their sadness about the news, how they loved their AS Exclusive and Handgrade shoes, thought they were among the best-bang-for-the-buck stuff one could get, and questioned why they had been so hard to get a hold off. The problem was painfully obvious when Alfred Sargent went into liquidation earlier this year. If you really want to support a retailer or a brand – buy full price. This new environment is putting many retailers and brands at serious strain, where some go under. Something that once was a rare sight is now the norm, and albeit retailers and brands obviously have their part, a lot comes down to customer behaviour and how people rather “make a steal” and buy a bunch of pairs on sale than get what they really want and need at full price. In recent years we’ve seen an increasing amount of sales in the section of quality welted footwear.
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