
The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource - okfine
https://theoutline.com/post/7342/payless-shoesource-shutting-down-appreciation
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Spooky23
The missing factor is that when shoe production was completely sourced to a
few companies in China (70% of US market), nearly all shoes turned to shit. So
Payless wasn’t really differentiated itself from any other value brand.

The end of Payless is just another private equity story, and poor kids will
just get a smaller variety of shitty shoes from WalMart, TJMaxx, or Dollar
General.

The majority of us get screwed in other ways, as we pay more for increasingly
lousy footwear.

~~~
pard68
Never been to PayLess, is it any good, or rather was it?

Also, should mention TJMaxx has decent stuff. Never bought shoes there but I
get pants, shirts, and random stuff for the house. My wife gets plenty of
clothes there though.

~~~
joe_the_user
Payless has been my favorite shop for years.

I buy shoes that look like leather loafers but as basically as floppy as
slippers. _This is exactly what I want and need_. They are respectable enough
to wear in work situations but I can also use them for martial arts or any
other physical activity. Basically, they're nearly as good as barefoot, which
isn't practical for various reasons.

I find it ironic that a lot of folks buy $120 "toe shoes" when they learn of
the value of nearly barefoot ... when they could just buy the proper cheap
shoes instead.

(Edit, I've studied bodywork, balance system and such. The arch supports and
such of "good shoes" are arguably actually back for most people, interfering
with the natural rhythm of walking, etc).

~~~
YUMad
Can you give any links or pic of those shoes?

~~~
joe_the_user
You may google this:

[https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22toe+shoes%22+&ie=utf-8&o...](https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22toe+shoes%22+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

~~~
YUMad
No, I meant the shoes you buy.

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writeslowly
The article doesn't mention this, but it looks like this happened after a
leveraged buyout by private equity firms in 2012 (similar to other big retail
chains like Toys R Us or Sports Authority)

~~~
homero
Here's a great video about Payless
[https://youtu.be/GJ35lCrOYC0](https://youtu.be/GJ35lCrOYC0)

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themodelplumber
> we racked up hours roaming fluorescent lit aisles, inhaling the smell of
> off-gassing pleather.

Funny. And if I had to bet on one term that could completely change the
materials of which consumer products are made, possibly sparking a consumer
materials revolution, "off-gassing" would be it. Once you learn about it, it's
always there, nagging you to ventilate or throw out.

In fact I'd say that along with terms like "gaslighting" and "toxic
relationship" enjoying recent prominence, times have never been better for
terms capturing the psychological rejection of toxins driving humans headlong
toward life change.

~~~
Animats
It's "out-gassing", as the plasticizers leach out of the vinyl. The "new car
smell".

~~~
themodelplumber
As an industrial specialist term, sure. I'm not sure if you've noticed but the
term "off-gassing" now has a more general meaning & life of its own outside of
that domain. I've heard people use it for situations up to and including
stinky clothes and flatulence over the last few years.

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pascalxus
Shoes is one of those things I almost never need to buy, now that I'm an adult
and fully grown. Even the very cheapest ones can last me 10 years or more
without wearing out.

Actually, it's the Nikes that wear out much faster, it seems.

PS:(edit) I walk around a decent amount and even go running 6 to 9 miles per
week. Even a super cheap pair of running shoes won't show any holes in it for
4+ years at least. The Nike ones I had started falling apart in just in less
than 2 years.

And yes, I do have about 10 pairs, but tend to stick to 4-5 pair at a time
time. and I don't throw them away until the wear is so low that an actual hole
forms or even multiple holes/rips form. most of time just get some plimsolls,
those tend to last forever.

~~~
kristopolous
What brand are you wearing?

~~~
pard68
Not OP but I got a pair of Clark's in 2010 that I still wear. Granted they are
sandals, but of anything that is even more impressive, I used to go through
sandals once a season.

And don't get me started on the poor state of common flipflop

~~~
kristopolous
oh excuse my french but fuck-an-a clarks are amazing. The pair I bought mine
at (which actually still somehow work) was from a mall which is now demolished
and has since turned into a condominium with a park.

Yes, the store left, the mall was abandoned, it got leveled, a new building
was placed there and that was a few years ago. I still have the damn sandals.
I wore them yesterday.

I tried moving on from them around 2012 using a pair of sandals from DSW and
those went to tatters so I went into my closet and brought the old clarks back
out and now years later they still work.

I should go and hunt out another pair.

There should be a review website with an incredibly high barrier to entry that
is designed to make sure there's completely unsolicited reviews for products.
Avoiding abuse and spam is definitely hand-waving here but that site would be
great.

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hprotagonist
_In those days, anywhere you found a Payless, you found kids who knew they
were getting subpar shoes, but also knew to appreciate them because they were
better than not getting new shoes at all._

Yup. That's exactly it. ( I wore my fair share of really crappy gym-class
shoes, too.)

~~~
tootie
My FIL grew up dirt poor in a developing country and was frequently short of
food and shoes to wear. His favorite things in America are fast food and
Payless.

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debatem1
The point about both helping create the race to the bottom and also catering
to those it leaves behind is, I think, an important and often overlooked one.

It's why Walmart is beloved in many of the small southern towns where I grew
up. Sure it relentlessly exploited poor people elsewhere, but when you're poor
yourself you can't help but be grateful for its low prices. And the belief
that finally, finally someone is giving _you_ the good end of that deal is
terribly reassuring-- like maybe, for once, someone has your back.

This, of course, quickly assumes a political dimension. At the time
conservatives (many of whom now back Trumpian protections, how times change)
railed against the so-called "latte liberals" who supposedly fought Walmart
from the comfort of their Mercedes-- not that anyone knew one of them
personally, of course. And we, the rank and file, ate it up: we needed our
cheap shoes, our cheap food, etc.

Now, as a liberal, when I hear people advocating for the breakup of Amazon or
Google, I can't help but think back to how I would have felt about that when I
was poorer, and when I didn't have the option of simply paying more for a
better cause. I think I would have fought quite hard to keep my costs low,
possibly to the point of voting against many of my other interests or beliefs.
And especially in this era of polarization and high-stakes politics, I'm not
sure it's a good idea to bet on people in general viewing that differently.

~~~
bdcravens
This sums up well Trump's ascension: there are a lot of people who have real
needs and real opinions, and whose votes count as much as someone's in
California or New York. An environment where we insist on leaving those voices
unheard is what enables someone to have extreme influence.

~~~
dunnevens
Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant
political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural
output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're
largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national
Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism.

The political system makes it pretty easy to ignore the liberal coastal areas.
Republicans benefit enormously from the unevenness of the Senate, House seat
allocations, and the Electoral College. And then in the states they control,
they put their finger on the scale via gerrymandering. Democrats can ignore
the coasts too because who else are they going to vote for?

Though the greatest irony of all is that those rural and poor voters in the
flyover states are also ignored in terms of their real needs. Their party
tosses them cultural red meat regularly, but defunds the things they need:
schools, roads, and various safety net programs which are often the only thing
keeping the rural poor afloat.

~~~
rayiner
Are Democrats centrist? One of the things I learn the deeper I dig into how
European countries are structured is that they’re more right leaning than
American liberals assume. Let’s take Spain. If we adopted Spain’s tax
structure, income taxes would go down by about a trillion dollars, while
consumption taxes (paid for primarily by middle class and poor people), would
go up two trillion dollars. Spain’s abortion laws are stricter than any
southern state’s (elective abortion legal only up to 14 weeks). On gay
marriage, Spain legalized it about 10 years before, but then the government
tried to repeal that law a few years later. The constitutional court ruling
permanently protecting gay marriage came just two years before the one in the
US. The Spanish minimum wage works out to about 6 euro per hour. Like the US
and almost all of Europe, many industries were privatized in the 1990s and
2000s, and unlike the US the passenger rail system is in the midst of
privatization.

~~~
jhbadger
Spain isn't really the model Americans think about in terms of Europe though.
That the country that was literally a Fascist dictatorship until the mid 1970s
has some right wing views isn't exactly a surprise. It's Scandinavia that's
the model the US left wants to copy.

~~~
rayiner
Sweden has corporate taxes slightly lower than under Trump’s tax law. It
collects 6% of revenue from corporate taxes, versus 9% in the US. It collects
much less of it’s revenue from progressive income taxes than the US does, and
much more from regressive consumption and payroll taxes. Sweden’s capital
gains rate is only moderately higher than the US’s (flat 30% versus 23.8% in
the top brackets). There are no inheritance taxes. In short, if the US adopted
Sweden’s tax code, taxes on lower income and middle class people would go up
much more than on rich people. (In fact, the tax burden in Sweden is almost
perfectly flat.) Sweden has school choice including subsidization of religious
schools. Elective abortion is legal only up to 18 weeks. Deregulation and
privatization are extensive. For example, Stockholm’s metro system is operated
under contract by for-profit corporations. Sweden has no ban on fully
automatic weapons or high capacity magazines.

These are really fundamental differences, particularly in the area of taxes
(and that’s true not just for Sweden and Spain, but most European countries).
In Europe, there is an expansive welfare state with lots of benefits for the
middle class, but the middle class are also the ones that pay for it, through
high payroll and sales taxes. In the US, replacing sales taxes with a 20% VAT
(the OECD average) would raise an extra $700 billion according to CBO
estimates. Enough to pay for socialized health care and education. But nobody
on the left is proposing that. Every proposal focuses on raising taxes on
corporations and the rich to pay for middle class benefits.

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rchaud
> My middle school was a cruel place where girls would sneak up behind you and
> grab the collar of your shirt to see if it was a “real” Esprit, or if you’d
> just sewed a tag onto the pocket of a knock-off (which I totally did).

I'm male, and an equivalent of this would happen in high school in my country
as well (late '90s). What is it about human society that causes others to try
to bully someone on the basis of their consumption choices? Kids have been
brand-aware for generations now, but to use these arbitrary perceptions of
brand value to shame someone who doesn't have access to them, is beyond
grotesque.

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spsrich
they saved me a bunch of money when I had to buy dance shoes for my daughter.
Sorry to see them go.

~~~
dvduval
I got my dance shoes there too. It will be hard to find a shoe that is
comparable.

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rchaud
I'm starting to notice that I need to replace shoes at a rate of nearly once
every year. Granted, I buy cheap sneakers from Marshalls/TJ Maxx and spend 4
winter months walking across semi-icy rock salt laden streets.

Part of me wants to buy walking shoes over the $75 mark to figure out if they
last longer, but the other part feels that at that price point, they aren't
designed to last any longer than the sub-$50 brands.

