sforum1
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2016
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noone will force anyone to buy anything and for any price. Simple: EG should add trees 'for free', even though it will not be free but rather included in the price, not for an additional $160 but perhaps an extra $15 which is what the actual cost is. Or eat up the cost and really add them for free. And noone said the trees have to be crappy. They can actually be nice, don't you think?What? So your point basically boils down to you think luxury shoemakers should force their customers to buy their shoe trees? ...Ok I guess? You said earlier that EG trees are crappy and no better than Woodlore so why would you want EG forcing you to buy their "overpriced" trees?
Cleverley is bespoke and costs multiples of what EG/JL/GG is so not really a fair comparison. Especially since bespoke shoes have a potentially more unique shape and would benefit more from a lasted tree. Again, please enlighten me on why the standard for RTW makers around the $1k price point is to bundle shoe trees. I've listed the three brands I've had experience with that include shoe trees (Vass, Zonkey Boot, St. C), the list of shoemakers who don't bundle trees is much larger and includes makers who are more on the purist side compared to the business profit maximizing side (Bonafe, Scafora, AM).
Your car analogy is also really bad... when you're driving around in your car people can see your wheels. When you're walking around in your nice shoes nobody can see your shoe trees because they're at home, so where's the potential "damage" to the prestige of the shoe brand from using cheap shoe trees? Unless you've seriously mis-sized them and they've warped the shoe or something who cares enough to judge you?
If you want to go down that line of reasoning then shouldn't shoemakers also require their customers to take great care of their shoes too; seeing a scuffed dry / cracked shoe might turn potential customers away from the brand. So why not propose that if you buy a pair of nice shoes you have to bring them to be inspected by the maker every month to make sure you're not bringing shame to their work, if you don't pass their standards then they take away your shoes
Cleverley includes very nice trees with their semibespoke shoes for the same price as EG charges. What's so difficult to understand?
And let's be honest. The Anthony Cleverley shoes are better than EG in every respect. And cheaper and with trees so nice that EG would easily feel it's ok to charge you $350 for them.
In any case, if EG wants to continue to do what they do with their trees, they can go ahead and do that. I'm convinced that from a business point of view they could not have done worse.
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