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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?

#861
post #128
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…

Additionally, their risk increases.

If the shoes don't sell, their losses can get much larger.

They need the potential to make more profit to offset this this potential for larger losses.

It's kind of like asking why Sears needs to make $200 in profit selling a refrigerator but only $2 selling a t-shirt.

Because that's just how it works...

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

#862
post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> … that they don' even paint for you Of course. That way they can sell you the official paints. Fortunately, it seems they’ve dropped that you’re required to use the official paints if you want to enter a sanctioned tournament.

I'm not into Warhammer, but out of curiosity, how did they check that? Scrape a sample off each figurine and run it through a mass spectrometer or something?

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

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda surprised people aren't just buying a 3D printer. I print stuff all the time. I'm not into this kind of game but if I were I wouldn't pay that much for a piece of plastic I can print at home for 3 bucks.

My group is 3D printing most of our stuff for beer and pretzels games. But official tournaments have a rule where your miniatures have to be official products. Note that a standard printer won't be anywhere near as nice quality as official models. You need a resin printer for that, which requires ventilation, some basic PPE, and additional labor to clean and cure the prints correctly. Not something you want to do wit…

Yes I know, resin printing is not great, I don't like it myself either. But FDM printing has gotten a lot better, especially with the bambulab material switcher where you can use water-dissolvable support material.

But cool to hear you're printing them. I can imagine they don't want to allow it at official tournament to protect the golden goose :)

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

#865

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…

>Look at how the US is being seen by the international community. The reputation we had as a strong ally and worthwhile partner has been badly damaged. Why would other nations want to help us now? How are we stronger alone, instead of having their eager support? As a Canadian, you just made the argument for strategic value for us. The economic damage caused at the whims of a single person in control of our supposed c…

Right, I think a single point of failure is the problem. Both domestic, or abroad. If you want strength and resilience, you need to have more than a single source for whatever you might need. It's a mistake for both of us to trust a single country to act rationally indefinitely. The problem for me is currently we're both using the same country this time.

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

#866
post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda surprised people aren't just buying a 3D printer. I print stuff all the time. I'm not into this kind of game but if I were I wouldn't pay that much for a piece of plastic I can print at home for 3 bucks.

Resin prints are production quality, but a messy/toxic process. We need a resin printer tuned for mass production of tiny pieces, just like belt FDM printers are tuned for mass production. FDM prints are either slow or have obvious layer lines or both. If you're painting it maybe that doesn't matter.

Resin is also slow (probably slower per mm^3 than FDM depending on nozzle size), but speed doesn't really matter IMO. But yeah with a high detail 0.2mm nozzle (0.1mm extrusions size) it does tend to get pretty slow. Layer lines are a factor of orientation a lot (you want to have steep angles, not very shallow ones).

I have several printers and I ususually have something "in the oven" while I WFH (my job is not related to 3D printing sadly)

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

#867
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"? Scarcity is very real, I'm not sure why you would feel otherwise. Fortunately, we have largely eliminated scarcity of the necessities of life due to economic policies that are as far from your suggestions as possible, but that doesn't mean that they are produced at no cost or that scarcity in general doe…

> Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"? I think the implication here is that such a society is not built on markets or even money, but rather by individuals working together to foster a collective community that meets everyone’s needs. Yes, communism. The more advanced we become technologically the more sense it makes. We’re largely at a poi…

If you look around and think most jobs are made up, most goods are worthless, and you have no choice but to make discretionary purchases, I don't know what to tell you.

Communism makes no sense until we reach a post-scarcity economy, which will never happen.

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

#868
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…

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

#869
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…

The most shocking thing for Americans when TikTok was shutdown for half a day was when they switched to the Chinese version of the app and they saw the truth -- that the middle class in China is living a higher quality of life than they are.

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

#870
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A precision injection moulding factory can (I assume) relatively quickly start producing other plastic parts for military use. Post-Brexit, there's now increased incentive for Games Workshop to build their next factory in the EU. (Games Workshop is one company, but this applies to every manufacturing company in the UK.)

Brexit is mad, driven by nostalgia etc. However, if we got a free trade agreement with the US would the inverse be true, EU companies are better off moving to the UK due to brexit? What about just a FTA with all commonwealth countries (why haven't we done this??)?

How can anybody trust the US ever again? Trump completely ignored an existing free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that he himself signed.

You have to assume that the US is sane a maximum of four years in a row and in four years another Trump 2.0 will again be completely ignoring all their agreements.

In my opinion, the US cannot be trusted with any treaties ever again the way they currently are.

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