Brands rely on pressure for sales

At the moment we are in a bit of a lull in terms of releases in the market. Knowing how brands are, especially the Big 3, this won’t last for long. When all of the big releases finally start coming again, brands will all big making a big push with sales and marketing. Brands are hopeful that customers will help pick up their lagging sales because of the issues going on. With this there will be even more pressure from brands than usual to get customers buying, even if they don’t need a pair of boots. However, we don’t need to give in.

There have been a ton of sales recently as a lot of retailers are trying to make sure they are not overflowing with product. In my circle of friends, I know many people who have bought several pairs of boots over the past month or so because of these sales. It seems to be the same with almost anyone I talk to. While these sales have been good, almost no-one has had a chance to go play in their new boots as of yet and it makes little sense to buy more boots when the new colourways will launch.

For me it’s easy enough to not buy a boot everytime a new colourway comes out. But this isn’t the case for everyone. Some people feel the need to buy every colour in a boot and others feel compelled to buy whatever new release hits the market. It’s not like I don’t get it, I do understand. They want to be the person on their team with the newest boots or they want to add to their collection. But unless a colourway you really like comes out or its a new model, its ok to skip it. Its ok to have old boots. Its ok to not have the newest and brightest release.

Rakuten’s company slogan is “Shopping is Entertainment” and it totally is. Its fun to buy new stuff. Its fun to browse at new stuff. I am just as guilty of it as anyone else. Where it should stop is when it comes to the actual purchasing of the new product. A good way to help with this is to limit yourself. Maybe don’t buy more than three pairs a year. Maybe tell yourself that if a new colourway comes out you won’t get it. Or what I like to do is have a list of older model boots I am willing to buy but limit how much I am willing to spend. I also like to make sure that I sell X amount of boots before I decide to get any new pairs, but I also don’t like my collection to be that big and I am not personally a fan of collecting new boots and never using them.

At the end of the day make sure the one who is deciding what to buy or not to buy is you. Don’t let companies push you into thinking that you should get the newest boots. Read reviews, browse pictures, see if anything about the boots puts you off. If so, then that is normally a good way of making sure you don’t really need the boots. Worse case scenario, wait and couple of months and see if you still want them as that’s what I do and I am always amazed at how many boots I end up skipping once the hype has died down.

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じゃあね！

All photos credit: Kemari87/Kishispo