In a time in which most of what we consume is mass-produced in China using cheap labour working on hard strenuous conditions, there is no excuse for paying what we pay for fashion items, many of them of bad or mediocre quality. Even if they are of good quality, they are still overpriced.
1/ Just look at the sales. Two examples. Last year, I bought a pair of sandals by Donna Karan from David Jones (no fakes, no damaged, good!) for 17 bucks. Yep. 17! The original price was close to 100! That is the tenth of the original price less, and they are still making profits out of it!
Yesterday afternoon, I bought a lovely sequinned Alannah Hill's cardigan, also at David Jones, valued at 200 dollars, for 64 bucks!
2/ On the other hand, there are perennial discounts and sales in stores like Myers, Ojay, Jacquie E, Review, to mention some places I visit often. Products are priced way over what they are worth, and after two days or two weeks on the racks at impossible prices they are discounted - 20 or 30%. Discounted? Or is it more rightly priced?
3/ There is a more dangerous trend - tested by me and my two eyes. You go to your fav shoe store because you fancy, say, a pair of shoes valued at 109 dollars. Being the bargain hunter I am, I drop by often to see if the price is reduced. Then, yesterday, I drop by again at seeing the sale sign. I enter. I check the price of that very same pair, and the sale sticker says.... 109 bucks. Isn't that insulting? Isn't that unethical? Isn't that a complete lack of respect towards the same very hand that feeds you?
These shops and chain stores are still making lots of money out of their discounts and sales. I am not saying to they have to sell below cost, but perhaps 5 times more instead of 10 times the price they sell. The workers in China are not becoming rich from their work, if you know what I mean.
We are living in the Matrix of a shopping retail fantasy. The harsh truth is that we are not getting a discount. What they call discount is something closer to what I call the ethical price of a product. I call ethical prices to those prices that provide a good revenue to the business, but do not overcharge consumers; in other words, the consumer pays what the product is worth (quality and real value) plus the business' profits and wages, plus a bonus for the exclusivity of the brand.
Ethical prices are missing in action in our normal non-luxury stores. Why are overcharged five, ten or twenty times the price of a product? Why do they overcharge us, and then complain that sales are not going well and that people are shopping online too much? Ahhhh, yes. It is called greediness and a short-sighted approach to business.
I rarely buy anything full-priced unless it is well-priced, something I really need, or something hand-made locally that is worth my hard-work-earned money. The interesting fact is that those people crafting unique pieces in Western Australia are still producing affordable and even cheap items, despite their producing costs being higher. How can that be possible? Perhaps they are less greedy and have their craft more at heart and treat their customers with a bit of more respect not just like a money-making number.
