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

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

#181

Post by guhidalg »

Clubber wrote: post #69
ravelantunes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author’s point is that the lower cost of goods coming from Asia results in increased demand, which then generates more jobs in the post-manufacturing part of the chain.

I see your point. I suppose a counterpoint is now shoes won't be so disposable and professions for cobblers and the like will be in higher demand.

Is that better? We need at least one cobbler sure, but if shoes are so scarce that we need to repair them like some communist country, are we better off?

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

#183

Post by matt-p »

hmottestad wrote: post #172
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…

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 c…

Sure, but that has nothing to do with costs and everything to do with what the market will bear (while still recovering costs).

People will go and shop around for the best price on a $300 item, but for a $10 item they'll buy whatever's infront of them, so long as it's not clearly outrageous.

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

#184

Post by bombcar »

myrmidon wrote: post #171
pjc50 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There's a problem with just directly comparing them - because JKR probably brings in more revenue to the UK than fishing, with Potter copyrights.

But most of that revenue goes to JKR, whereas most of the fishing revenue may end up in "working class" people's pockets.

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

#185

Post by singron »

xpe wrote: post #123

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

I've used shoe goo to get more life out of shoes. It's marketed as an adhesive, but you can apply it to the bottom of the sole to rebuild thickness to the tread. A single tube could be used for dozens of repairs. After that for me, usually the textiles in the upper fray from the inside out, and I just ignore it until it becomes externally visible or uncomfortable.

I don't think more extensive repairs are economical, and you are better off wearing shoes you like until they disintegrate. There is a bit of mythology about buying expensive boots and repairing them in the hope that it's more economical, but it's really not: https://mastodon.social/@danluu/111068432320682422

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

#186

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #4

It’s like people excited about the new datacenter being built in their town, think of all the jobs that will bring they cry. Nobody realizes it takes 6 people to run a datacenter. Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs.

Better than the three towns in my area that all gave away land, tax breaks, county paid power infrastructure to… coin miners.

All three districts fell for “thousands of tech jobs”… turned out to be a couple dozen of people they brought in.

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

#187

Post by tmaly »

gorfian_robot wrote: post #74
tmaly wrote: post #57

I think the one thing I am not seeing much discussion on is, will the end consumer pay for these $150 sneakers or will they simply switch to lower cost alternative brands?

fun fact: sneakers are already $150. went shoe shopping at a "sketchers warehouse" and found a pair that fit well and noped them back on the shelf when I checked the price.

yes, I know we already have $150 sneakers, but you can get sneakers for $30 at Costco still.

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

#188

Post by markus_zhang »

tayo42 wrote: post #174
lossolo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

English is the second language of most young and middle-aged Chinese, so you should be fine at least in tier-s cities.

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

#189

Post by tshaddox »

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…

Isn't that pretty intuitive? Imagine if they had to spend one million dollars in order to make $50 profit.

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

#190

Post by teachrdan »

Clubber wrote: post #68
grayhatter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain the strategic value like I'm 5? I see people reference this idea all the time, but I'm unconvinced it's actually valuable enough to be worth it given all the other downsides. I don't actually believe it's a positive value proposition. I see the argument for things of military significance. The common one is electronic components. But PCBs manufacturing is easy to spinup quickly. Which leave the critical compo…

Imagine if China decided to invade Taiwan like they've been threatening to do for a while. They would instantly cut off all exports to the US, because that's the smart thing to do. They would probably blockade Japan and other countries as well to keep them from exporting to the US, because that's the smart thing to do. Now since our supply chains were greatly disrupted (remember COVID?) we can only go to war with the…

> Imagine if China decided to invade Taiwan like they've been threatening to do for a while. They would instantly cut off all exports to the US, because that's the smart thing to do.

I think what you're getting at is that China would have more leverage over the US if they attacked (attempted to invade) Taiwan, which they could use to make it more difficult for the US to protect Taiwan.

In that case they could do things like block some or all exports to the US until we, say, stopped escorting cargo ships in and out of Taiwan. But the notion they would "instantly cut off all exports to the US" is nonsense. There's no reason that's somehow a no-brainer post invasion.

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