Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#171

Post by myrmidon »

pjc50 wrote: post #102
rayiner wrote: post #42

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but f…

> US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive lead…

> Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer.

This sounded completely insane to me. I tried to look up numbers and found that Games Workshop brings in > 0.5 billion in revenue (!!), compared to all of UKs fisheries at 1 billion-ish (profit margins are, as you'd expect, pretty favorable for the plastic figurines that they don' even paint for you).

Thanks for this interesting fact.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#172

Post by hmottestad »

matt-p wrote: post #128
hx8 wrote: post #83

> But if we bump the cost of freight, insurance, and customs from $5 to, say, $28, then they wholesale the shoes to Footlocker for about $75. And if Footlocker purchases Nike shoes for $75, then they retail them for $150. Everyone needs to fixed percentages to avoid losses. I don't understand this paragraph. If Footlocker was okay with $50 profit/shoe, why do they need to claim $75 profit/shoe in their costs per shoe…

In theory, you're right, however it ignores some key points; -Some of their costs are in fact linear based on the cost of the item. Inventory cost doubles, perhaps now they have to take out higher interest debt to finance that. Things like insurance would also at least double. Transaction fees (like card fees at about ~2%) and other parts (like returns risk) also increase linearly. -Reduced sales due to increased pri…

I think it depends a lot. I remember working in retail for a summer and saw some of the prices. If you wanted to buy an alarm clock, that was 100% markup, but if you wanted to buy the Garmin GPS then it was 15% markup.

I would think that specialised and expensive shoes have less markup than cheaper and more common shoes. But if the cheaper and more common shoes become 50% more expensive then there aren’t really any cheap shoes left to feed the bottom line…

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#174

Post by tayo42 »

lossolo wrote: post #132
rayiner wrote: post #42

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but f…

This. Anyone who doesn’t believe it — please go spend some time in Shenzhen, Shanghai, or similar cities, like I did. I just got back from China. I’ve been (also lived and worked) to the U.S. many times, and I can confidently say that China’s tier-1 cities are on another level when it comes to development and QoL (and not only T1 cities, I was in smaller regions in the north too). It’s also incredibly clean, super sa…

That's been my current dream trip for a little. I think it woukd be so cool to ride the trains around the country and see what it's really like there. Learning the language is hard though

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#175

Post by matt-p »

bgirard wrote: post #162
matt-p wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, you're right, however it ignores some key points; -Some of their costs are in fact linear based on the cost of the item. Inventory cost doubles, perhaps now they have to take out higher interest debt to finance that. Things like insurance would also at least double. Transaction fees (like card fees at about ~2%) and other parts (like returns risk) also increase linearly. -Reduced sales due to increased pri…

Presuming that theft rates will increase also if the item is more costly and affordable to less[edit*] people. Also if inventory is damaged in the warehouse or on the sales floor, lost or unsold then those cost scale with the cost of the item.

To less people? I think I touched on that but yes.

All of that would typically be tied together as inventory cost (aside from theft, though some people do).

Lots of fascinating things in retail. Around half of all theft will be from your own employees, for example.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#176

Post by edm0nd »

Sonnigeszeug wrote: post #99
edm0nd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You do understand that Chinese Companies can easily just hire people from abroad? You also do know how many companies moved their knowledge to China on purpose right? The knowledge on how to build things, is learnable even if you don't just 'hack' everything. And there is a lot of signaling happening, that china has surpassed American and European companies in R&D. CATL for example. Whatever China did or still does,…

You do understand that Chinese government can (and does) easily just instruct their nation-state hackers to steal from abroad?

They have been caught doing this for decades.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#177

Post by codazoda »

xpe wrote: post #123

Are comfortable and repairable shoes possible and sensible from an economic point of view? Any recommendations?

I don't think they are right now.

I have very wide feet, so much so that I've seriously considered manufacturing my own shoes (possibly with a 3D printer). Shoe makers and repair shops do exist but they are becoming quite rare.

My understanding is that a good quality repairable shoe is about $500 or about 5x the price of the $100 shoe we're talking about. Repairing it is labor intensive and adds even more to that cost. So, I can buy at least 5 pairs of $100 shoes for the price of a good quality and repairable shoe and that doesn't consider the repair costs.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#178

Post by jimt1234 »

Sorta related: Those Crocs/clogs shoes have been extremely popular for a few years now. ... I've always wondered how much it costs to make that type of shoes (Crocs/clogs) - it can't cost more than $1 to make most of them; they're just injection-molded, right?

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#179

Post by rvnx »

crazygringo wrote: post #159
hx8 wrote: post #83

> But if we bump the cost of freight, insurance, and customs from $5 to, say, $28, then they wholesale the shoes to Footlocker for about $75. And if Footlocker purchases Nike shoes for $75, then they retail them for $150. Everyone needs to fixed percentages to avoid losses. I don't understand this paragraph. If Footlocker was okay with $50 profit/shoe, why do they need to claim $75 profit/shoe in their costs per shoe…

It's a great question, and the answer is that you're missing the change in demand. Let's say Foot Locker tries to keep the same absolute profit $50 and retails the shoes for $125 instead of the previous $100. Now demand goes down, because more people will skip a new pair of sneakers. So Foot Locker's absolute profit goes down . But they still have the same fixed retail space, advertising, and labor as you said. So to…

There is also the fact that with each USD you can buy less and less as a private person.

So to have the same quality of life, you expect higher returns.

Which mean that you will choose to invest into companies that offers a better return, and for that, these companies will have raise their prices, which in turn, spirals into additional price raises.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#180

Post by ebruchez »

Sonnigeszeug wrote: post #100
bpt3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their population is declining, and they are a long way away from parity with the west on a per-capita basis. I think China missed their opportunity. Also, the UK hasn't dominated finance for a century and has never been dominant in services, so it doesn't seem like an apt comparison.

'declining' on which level? China will surpass USA from a GDP Point of view in 2035. China surpassed Germany as industry machines export in 2018.

> China will surpass USA from a GDP Point of view in 2035.

Don't be so sure, this has become much less clear. For example, in this article: "The Centre for Economics and Business Research, which in 2020 predicted that China would overtake the U.S. by 2028, revised the crossover point two years later, to 2036. This month, the British consultancy said it will not happen in the next 15 years."

https://www.newsweek.com/2025/01/31/china-us-compete-biggest...

Post reply on HN