Addidas Shackle Shoes

[Warrior1461]

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/adida...185000146.html

I am outraged over these shoes not because they are perceived as racist or glorifying prison life. But they are charging $350 for that.

Which gets me thinking. why do all these basketball shoes, from NIke and Co. Which are made in some 3rd world country by borderline slave labor cost 250 bucks to buy. The argument is always these companies ship jobs overseas for cheap labor to lower prices.

Yet Kobe's new nike shoe costs 250 to buy. What material is this shoe made of for the product to cost that much.

Or is it just the Brand name and the name of the NBA player slapped on it for it to cost that much.

A few years ago Paris Hilton tried the same crap, put her name on high priced fashions sold and only at exclusive boutiques. It failed, her name could not sell anything because the public saw her as a joke and her products were butt ugly.

Or is this price the result of the public perceived value of the product.
I personally do not think that any of these NBA player endorsed shoes are even worth that price. If the Kobe Elite was half that price I think it would be too much.

I wonder if it is time to Nike, Reebok and Addias to get investigated by the FTC for price fixing, how can something made that cheaply cost that MUCH.

[Mark R]

Originally Posted by Warrior1461

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/adida...185000146.html

I am outraged over these shoes not because they are perceived as racist or glorifying prison life. But they are charging $350 for that.

I do not know if I would call those shoes racist, but they sure are ugly. I would not wear them if I was paid to.

I never understood paying so much for sneakers. In my experience sneakers never last very long.

[bynmdsue]

Looks like the shackles are just velcro, that's not going to stop someone from stealing your shoes.

And yeah, it's just the brand name. Otherwise they're just leather and rubber. If people refused to pay that much, they wouldn't be able to sell them for that much. So it's a status thing. If your shoes cost you 250.00 then obviously you're a special kind of person. The kind of person who can afford to pay that much for what, realistically? 5.00 worth of material? Less? .50 worth of labor?

[commandlinegamer]

I've seen bondage shoes (presumably for women, but you never know): court type, patent leather with a collar which goes round the ankle, but certainly not so explicitly old fashioned shackle-like.

As far as the cost, it's justifiable if there are people mug enough to buy them.

[Ryokan]

Yes, you pay for the brand. This is nothing new.

[Quinn]

People looking for something to be offended by will be able to get their daily dose from this. Beyond that, meh.

[FramerDave]

It has nothing to do with the materials used, the quality of workmanship, their appearance or comfort. It has everything to do with what people are willing toay for them. If there are enough people out there willing to pay $350 for a pair of shoes, then they are worth $350. Plain and simple.

Price fixing? I seriously doubt it. You'd have to prove that the various companies conspired to set prices and agree on minimimum and maximum prices.

Oh, one more thing: the companies do not use overseas sweatshops to lower prices. They do it to lower costs and increase profits.

[Rolfe]

It's a stupid, ugly fashion statement. Some people need to get over themselves.

And also, what Framer Dave said.

Rolfe.

[Bikewer]

May prove popular with bondage fans....Who are used to paying high prices for specialized "gear".....

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by Bikewer

May prove popular with bondage fans....Who are used to paying high prices for specialized "gear".....

But who wouldn't accept plastic shackles if you gave them away for free.

Er, or so I'd assume.

[alfaniner]

The only logical reason for marketing these would be if somehow Shaq was involved.

[The Dark Lord]

I think they are stupid. But I have far better things to be outraged about.

[Scopedog]

Originally Posted by alfaniner

The only logical reason for marketing these would be if somehow Shaq was involved.

I don't get your joke, but interestingly, Shaq has been selling his shoes through Payless for years:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbade...ing-visionary/

O’Neal again broke the mold with his post-Reebok shoe business. This is the story according to Shaq that launched one of the best selling basketball shoes ever. O’Neal had just finished practice with the Orlando Magic when a mother in tears came up to him. “Why don’t one of you son of a bitches make an affordable sneaker?” she reproached him. Shaq pleaded helplessness: “I don’t set the prices. That’s Reebok’s job.” He tried to buy her off with $200. “I don’t want your damn money,” she hissed.

The confrontation led Shaq to launch shoes under two brands that he owns (Shaq and Dunkman). He partnered with several companies and sold the shoes at discount stores like Payless for under $40 (Nike‘s LeBron 8 costs $150). He has sold more than 90 million pairs of the shoes over the past 15 years.

[Puppycow]

I've seen a lot of fashionable women's heels that give off a definite bondage vibe.

I think it's more of a kinky thing.

I don't care for these sneakers, but I see no reason to be outraged. Are they being marketed only to black people? I really don't care how much they charge because they are plenty of other more affordable shoes to choose from, including from the same brand.

I am kind of annoyed though because even though these brands' spells don't work on me, my teenage daughter seems to be obsessed with certain brands and refuses to listen to her parents' advice on what clothes to buy, so I end up paying for them anyway.

[Warrior1461]

Oh, one more thing: the companies do not use overseas sweatshops to lower prices. They do it to lower costs and increase profits.

No but that is what companies who use such exploitation saw to justify it. We are passing the savings on to you. Then still charge you robbery prices for it.

For me I will not pay more than it costs for a new video game console for a pair of ugly shoes. If I do pay that much, I want those to be the last pair of shoes I will ever need.

[Ladewig]

My only thought is that if anyone wearing those things falls asleep near me, I would not be able to overcome the temptation to put the shackles on the opposite legs. I would hope that such a prank might make the owner say "yes, these shoes are stupid as everyone says," but I doubt it.

[Modified]

Originally Posted by FramerDave

Oh, one more thing: the companies do not use overseas sweatshops to lower prices. They do it to lower costs and increase profits.

Based on a quick internet search, Nike profit is about $10 per shoe. Labor per shoe is between 2 and 3 hours. So if the shoes were made in the US and sold at the same price, they would soon be out of business. In other words, all else being equal, if the shoes were made in the US, they would have to raise prices significantly.

[tomwaits]

This is the greatest thing I've ever seen. I'm adding it to my Christmas list.

[Weak Kitten]

Originally Posted by Modified

Based on a quick internet search, Nike profit is about $10 per shoe.

Where did you get that information? I'd love to see the full breakdown of materials, shipping, marketing and labor.

My guess is that if they are not making obscene profits it is due to spending so much on marketing.

[crimresearch]

Originally Posted by Weak Kitten

Where did you get that information? I'd love to see the full breakdown of materials, shipping, marketing and labor.

My guess is that if they are not making obscene profits it is due to spending so much on marketing.

As a very general rule of thumb in retail/manufacturing, the price doubles at each level..

$300 list price items probably cost the store $100-150... if they sell it within 30% of that, they'll probably make money. The more they sell, the lower they can price it.



Probably cost the distributor around $75 to get the item to sell at $150.


The manufacturer at $35 to sell the item at $75, includes $10 profit, leaving actual cost to make and sell around $25.

Gross oversimplification, but the point is, that it doesn't take too many layers for an item to reach crazy price points.

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by Warrior1461

Which gets me thinking. why do all these basketball shoes, from NIke and Co. Which are made in some 3rd world country by borderline slave labor cost 250 bucks to buy. The argument is always these companies ship jobs overseas for cheap labor to lower prices.

Absolutely, completely, and utterly wrong. Not only is this not "always" the argument made, but it is almost never the argument made. They don't ship jobs overseas to lower prices...prices aren't determined according to labor cost, they are determined according to market demand. Nike doesn't set prices according to how much it costs to produce them; it sets prices according to how much people are willing to pay to buy them.

Jobs are shipped overseas in order to decrease costs and increase profits. If they decreased their costs, and then decreased their prices as well, there would be no significant increased profits, which would make moving the operations overseas pointless in the first place.

Not to sound too condescending, but if you're really interested in this topic, I'd suggest you do a great deal more reading in areas such as supply and demand, and general business principles.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

Absolutely, completely, and utterly wrong. Not only is this not "always" the argument made, but it is almost never the argument made. They don't ship jobs overseas to lower prices...prices aren't determined according to labor cost, they are determined according to market demand. Nike doesn't set prices according to how much it costs to produce them; it sets prices according to how much people are willing to pay to buy them.

Jobs are shipped overseas in order to decrease costs and increase profits. If they decreased their costs, and then decreased their prices as well, there would be no significant increased profits, which would make moving the operations overseas pointless in the first place.

Not to sound too condescending, but if you're really interested in this topic, I'd suggest you do a great deal more reading in areas such as supply and demand, and general business principles.

Well, let's see if anyone makes the argument that it lowers prices:

http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/vi...text=parkplace

Quote:

This in turn will lower the cost of goods and services to you, the consumer

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-does-out...us-economy.htm

Quote:

A common theory contends that being able to pay people lower wages for work means that companies will be able to produce things with less expense and transfer this saving to consumers.

[alfaniner]

Originally Posted by Scopedog

I don't get your joke, but interestingly, Shaq has been selling his shoes through Payless for years:

"Shaqles".

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Warrior1461

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/adida...185000146.html

I am outraged over these shoes not because they are perceived as racist or glorifying prison life. But they are charging $350 for that.

Which gets me thinking. why do all these basketball shoes, from NIke and Co. Which are made in some 3rd world country by borderline slave labor cost 250 bucks to buy. The argument is always these companies ship jobs overseas for cheap labor to lower prices.


...snip...

They do, what you are confused about is for whom the price is lowered. It is the company that lowers its prices i.e. its costs.

[Quinn]

Looks like the perpetually offended got their way:

Adidas cancels 'shackle' shoes after outcry

[Pup]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

Jobs are shipped overseas in order to decrease costs and increase profits. If they decreased their costs, and then decreased their prices as well, there would be no significant increased profits, which would make moving the operations overseas pointless in the first place.

In isolation, that's true. In real life, the competition will do the same thing and undercut your prices. It's why you can buy sneakers at Walmart for $10--because some companies did decide to ship jobs overseas and decrease prices, in a race downward to the cheapest shoes.

I expect that the reason that name brand companies can sell sneakers for so much more is that there are real costs involved to keep the price up, far beyond the per-hour labor costs of manufacturing, and those costs are difficult to ship overseas, because you need the advertising, the celebrity endorsements, and the designers to constantly come up with new designs.

Dropping the 2-3 hours of labor from, say, $20 an hour to $2 an hour is going to decrease the price of the shoe maybe $45, and that's necessary if your competition is also paying $2 an hour. But if you're competing for the Adidas-Nike buyers, it's not like you can save on endorsement money by getting a cheap Chinese sports star, that nobody's ever heard of in America, to endorse them to save money. You're pretty much stuck with those costs.

[Eddie Dane]

French luxury brand Hermés sells handbags that cost $ 15.000.
There is a 1,5 year waiting list for those items.

What's makes these handbags so special?
Well , that they're expensive and you have to wait for them, of course
All the more special to be seen with them.

Or my favourite example:
I have a Casio G-shock watch.
Waterproof, shock-proof, 40 city world time, 2 stopwatches, 1 countdown timer, runs on solar energy, moon phases/tides/ radio connection to an atomic clock, lights up in the dark, altimeter, tachimetre, barometer, thermometer, compass and date. Price: $ 250.
You can buy a Zenith watch for $ 65.000 that tells the time and date.

Apparently functionality is not what sets the price here.

Branding is a delicate game that takes tremendous skill and years of engineered image-building.
I am in awe of people who can sell crappy shoes for $ 300.

Enjoy your outrage.

[Bikewer]

So, CNN was all over the story this morning, and they had Jesse Jackson being properly outraged over the connection to "slavery" and all.
Now....Not being black....I can perhaps see this viewpoint. I can see where Black folks, sensitive about past abuses, would see anything involving chains and bondage as offensive.

But...From my standpoint as an admittedly lily-white guy... The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the pics of the shoes was...."These shoes are so cool I have to chain them to my ankles!" So that folks wouldn't steal 'em, you see....
I would bet that this is the message the marketers wanted to convey, and if they had intended some sort of racist/slavery connection they wouldn't have gone with bright-orange velcro "shackles" with "ADDIDAS" in raised letters.

[Modified]

Originally Posted by Weak Kitten

Where did you get that information? I'd love to see the full breakdown of materials, shipping, marketing and labor.

There are no definitive sources, but many claims of $10 per shoe, which seems reasonable. Just using company profits and claimed number of shoes sold last year gets you $20 per shoe, but they are selling lots of other stuff which probably has a higher profit margin (t-shirts etc.).

Quote:

My guess is that if they are not making obscene profits it is due to spending so much on marketing.

That's why I said "all else being equal". Using US labor they could not sell the highly marketed products they do now at anywhere near the same prices. And for those of us who wear $20 shoes that are not highly marketed, there would be no such thing.

[NoahFence]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alfaniner
The only logical reason for marketing these would be if somehow Shaq was involved.

Quote:

I don't get your joke, but interestingly, Shaq has been selling his shoes through Payless for years:

Shaqles?

[Baloney]

Slavery!

http://2.s3.envato.com/files/6662362/5339565_xl.jpg

Edited by LashL:

Changed hotlink to regular link. Please see Rule 5.

(Well, wage slavery, at the least.)

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by Bikewer

So, CNN was all over the story this morning, and they had Jesse Jackson being properly outraged over the connection to "slavery" and all.
Now....Not being black....I can perhaps see this viewpoint. I can see where Black folks, sensitive about past abuses, would see anything involving chains and bondage as offensive.

But...From my standpoint as an admittedly lily-white guy... The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the pics of the shoes was...."These shoes are so cool I have to chain them to my ankles!" So that folks wouldn't steal 'em, you see....
I would bet that this is the message the marketers wanted to convey, and if they had intended some sort of racist/slavery connection they wouldn't have gone with bright-orange velcro "shackles" with "ADDIDAS" in raised letters.

It's kind of American-centric to assume that when a German-origin international company with a completely global presence does something involving shackles that it must be related to the subset of slavery practiced in America in the past.

There are lot of assumptions bought into by believing in a connection here:
1. shackles can only be related to slavery
2. slavery is only ever the historical American kind
3. slavery is only ever about American black people
and the omnipresent number 4. Jesse Jackson is the spokesman for the entire black population of the US and people have to listen to what he says they feel about anything.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally Posted by Quinn

Looks like the perpetually offended got their way:

Adidas cancels 'shackle' shoes after outcry

How can people equate these with slavery? I never saw a slave wearing Adidas. They were lucky to even have shoes.

[Marduk]

Originally Posted by Bikewer

May prove popular with bondage fans....Who are used to paying high prices for specialized "gear".....

nope, the most I ever paid for "specialised gear" is £130, and I am professionally equipped, the most expensive item I've ever seen was around £350, I'm not telling you what it was, but it was made from full body length latex, was inflatable and came with its own compressor.

These shoes have nothing to do with bondage, the shackle part is not even functional and being functional is an absolute need for any bondage kit

if you don't want to pay $350 for them now, wait til next year when you can pick them up at a factory outlet for $30 a pair

[sadhatter]

Originally Posted by Warrior1461

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/adida...185000146.html

I am outraged over these shoes not because they are perceived as racist or glorifying prison life. But they are charging $350 for that.

Which gets me thinking. why do all these basketball shoes, from NIke and Co. Which are made in some 3rd world country by borderline slave labor cost 250 bucks to buy. The argument is always these companies ship jobs overseas for cheap labor to lower prices.

Yet Kobe's new nike shoe costs 250 to buy. What material is this shoe made of for the product to cost that much.

Or is it just the Brand name and the name of the NBA player slapped on it for it to cost that much.

A few years ago Paris Hilton tried the same crap, put her name on high priced fashions sold and only at exclusive boutiques. It failed, her name could not sell anything because the public saw her as a joke and her products were butt ugly.

Or is this price the result of the public perceived value of the product.
I personally do not think that any of these NBA player endorsed shoes are even worth that price. If the Kobe Elite was half that price I think it would be too much.

I wonder if it is time to Nike, Reebok and Addias to get investigated by the FTC for price fixing, how can something made that cheaply cost that MUCH.

Colors aside, i actually like the shoes, make them black with a real looking chain and i'd actually wear running shoes again.

But really, what the hell is controversial about this. Subcultures have been wearing chains, handcuffs, shackles, for at least as long as i have been old enough to engage in a subculture. I mean originally i was just going to cite punk rock, but chains themselves are kind of a universal accessory, hell my belt at age 18 had 4 sets of real ( looking) handcuffs on it, so why exactly is this causing a stir?

My only guess is that expensive sneakers are seen as "Black", even by black folks. So the only reason this is racist, is because of a previously held racist view. I mean , really, i could dredge out my old pair of boots that are pretty much this design, with a silver looking shackle, attached to the top part of the boot, but apparently they are actually covert racist footwear, kind of like some inanimate reverse nwo.

[sadhatter]

Originally Posted by Ladewig

My only thought is that if anyone wearing those things falls asleep near me, I would not be able to overcome the temptation to put the shackles on the opposite legs. I would hope that such a prank might make the owner say "yes, these shoes are stupid as everyone says," but I doubt it.

Then you can take someone's wallet chain and tie it to a chair arm, ohh the humor that ensues when we judge other people's style preference.

[Pup]

When I saw the picture of the shoes, the first thing I thought was this:

http://www.bikehacks.com/.a/6a0120a7...cea1970d-800wi

[Bikewer]

Pup, why I, as a veteran cyclist didn't see that....

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

Well, let's see if anyone makes the argument that it lowers prices:

http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/vi...text=parkplace


http://www.wisegeek.com/how-does-out...us-economy.htm

Wow...you found two obscure articles with isolated references; let's ignore the fact that you conveniently clipped off the last part of the sentence in the first quote, that read, "This in turn will lower the cost
of the goods and services to you, the consumer, and the company will remain competitive"

And that is the issue -- competition.

Let's say that I manufacture a product at $10, and sell it for $20. It is already well established that people are willing to buy my product for $20. I then discover a way to decrease my costs, so that it only costs me $7 to manufacture my product.

Quick market research indicates that reducing my price will not result in a significant increase in sales...so if I reduce the price, there's no benefit. Whereas by keeping the price the same, I've just increased my profits by 30%, without adding any additional cost to the consumer.

So there is simply no rational business argument for decreasing the price I charge my customer.

Now, we add one further component -- competition. Let's say I have a competitor who lowers their price to $15. Now it has a definite impact on my sales, as many people buy my competitor's lower-priced product rather than my own. So I will lower my price, also. Not because I've reduced my own production costs, but because of competition from others.

If you think that a company should run on the basis that "if I reduce my costs, it means I should reduce the price I charge customers"...feel free. Please, go and start your own business, built on that model. And I'll be happy to start a pool to bet on how long it'll take you to go out of business.