Actually New Zealanders are being ripped off when it comes to sports shoes. Mega ripped off, and it makes me wild that we have to pay so much. Take for example the Keen walking sandal... Here's a pic of it!
Nice shoe. Looks comfortable. Versatile. Summery. Colour great. I saw this shoe on sale at Sports Authority in San Luis Obispo for $19.95 USD. Unfortunately they didn't have my size so I bought a similar pair but of the TEVA brand instead.
I went down to our local outlet centre on Friday for a flat white coffee, something I missed terribly while upover, but called into the outdoors shop for a quick squiz at what they have in stock or on sale. It's a habit of mine - I like outdoor sports shops. Anyway - there in the far corner of the store, was this exact same keen sandal. And it was on sale... for...
$167.50 down from $239.99
I now wish I had asked the store in San Luis Obispo to find my size, get it in, and ship it to me!!!
Exchange rate? $1 USD is currently $0.72c NZ. So $19.95 is aprox $24.00 NZD.
The other pair of shoes I bought were Salomon off road walking shoes. These same shoes I tried on at Christmas time when I was training for the Oxfam 100km. Here in New Zealand they have a price tag of $325.00. For that reason I left them on the shelf and bought another pair slightly cheaper for something like $280.00.
I found these same Salomon shoes - same model - at REI in San Francisco. They were not on sale but still had a price tag of $84 USD - about $110 NZD.
So it's not the exchange rate. It's definitely not shipping costs. Someone in New Zealand is taking a huge slice of profit for bringing them over. Huge. That's $200 PER SHOE extra we're paying for at least - and I'm talking retail prices not wholesale. They also bring in far more than one shoe - I wouldn't care to guess the numbers.
We don't have the American's population - that I agree - but I still say we're being ripped off big time.
From now on anyone visiting New Zealand will need to make special room in their suitcase to bring me shoes.
Cheers
Robyn
It's funny you should say that! I was just in NYC for the weekend and my tour guide said that he often has tourists from Finland on his bus. Apparently, they have to import all the materials for shoes to that country, so their shoe prices are incredibly expensive, too. The tour guide said that Finnish tourists always come back on the bus with bags and bags full of "cheap" shoes to bring home!
ReplyDeleteFunny that, even though the US Dollar isn't so hot right now, our footwear prices are doing okay!
Glad you got some fancy new shoes!
Hi Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteSix pairs of fancy new shoes. Let me know when you're coming to NZ and I'll give you a shoe order LOL
Cheers
Robyn
Yep. And lets not even get into thinking about the poor bastards who make them and how much they get ripped off!
ReplyDeleteI almost fell over when I saw almost $400 for a pair of shoes over there! Now I'm a shoe whore out and out and I do have some shoes that cost in the neighborhood of 200-300 bucks and I couldn't imagine paying that much there! You should get them here and ship em :)
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