gm928
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2015
- Messages
- 260
- Reaction score
- 226
I'm curious as to why the Brooks Brothers models are more expensive than regular AE shoes, but the 2nds are much cheaper than regular AE seconds. For example, the BB Strand is $428 new, but the BB seconds Strand is only $149.
This is only speculation, but my guess is that it has to do with AE's general pricing strategy. For AE's own-branded shoes, the seconds on the shoebank are competing against regular-priced first-quality shoes on the main AE site, or possibly against clearance-priced first-quality shoes on the main AE site. They need to price the shoebank seconds low enough to reflect a fair discount based on whatever defect made the shoes seconds to begin with, but high enough to avoid being such a tremendous deal that customers who would have otherwise paid more for firsts will feel "forced" to buy seconds. In other words, they are concerned with maintaining an appropriate ratio between firsts / clearance firsts / seconds. But when it comes to the Brooks models, none of this applies because AE isn't selling the Brooks models as firsts. You can't get the Brooks models on the main AE website or in AE's b&m stores at any price, so they aren't worried about undercutting their own sales. They're probably just pricing them at something close to the actual manufacturing cost to avoid a total loss.
