Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Style and beauty

Looking for style advice? Chat all about it here. For the latest discounts on fashion and beauty, sign up for Mumsnet Moneysaver emails.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

OMG I just nearly fell over when the shop assistant told me the price of my daughter's new boots!

128 replies

petalpower · 26/09/2009 14:23

Just been to buy my 7 year old daughter some winter boots (leather knee high type). We went to our normal shoe shop (StartRite or whatever they call themselves now) as she has tricky shaped feet - wide feet and high instep. Finally found a pair that fitted. Went to the till to pay and they were £74.99!! Don't think I will be telling DH the price. How can they justify this?

OP posts:

nickytwotimes · 27/09/2009 20:28

Well, of course it is fine to spend whatever you want if you have the dosh, but the op is clearly not happy!

FabBakerGirlIsBack · 27/09/2009 20:30

There isn't always a choice about the cost if your child doesn't have bog standard feet.

nickytwotimes · 27/09/2009 20:33

Yeah I guess, but my ds has high instep and wide feet and he still gets his shoes from Brantano, Asda and other cheapo places. As I say, Clarks were awful for him.

I just don't get the British obsession with kids' footwear (despite being British} My parents went to great lengths to get me good footwear as a kid and my feet are bloody awful.

Original poster

petalpower · 27/09/2009 20:34

Different strokes for different folks is exactly right! In my OP I was really trying to get across the total shock I felt at the price of a pair of girls boots from a mainstream high street shop in a not particularly affluent rural town. I certainly wasn't saying poor me how could I have been such a fool. I fully realise that I am in a very lucky position to be able to pay that sort of money for something essentially so frivolous particularly given the current economic climate.DD for what it's worth loves the boots and has been wearing them with a summer skirt taoday as it was so warm!

OP posts:

mollyroger · 27/09/2009 20:36

If you have more than 1 child, £75 for one pair of shoes/boots is possibly not an option.

Even if you can afford it, I think it's ridiculous when the child will have outgrown them by next winter. A waste of money, energy, and probably made in a sweat shop by some less fortunate 7 year old...
And is giving our children not very healthy messages about what is important in life.

Lilyloo · 27/09/2009 20:38

My ds has big narrow feet his school shoes cost me £55 petasil , from local shoes shop , agree that european shoes have gone up!
Luckily his new trainers and the girls boots were all less than £20 each

Original poster

petalpower · 27/09/2009 20:40

My daughter doesn't know how much the boots cost - I did tell her that she was a very lucky girl though as they were a lot more than I wanted to pay. I think that paying through the nose for hideous Lelli Kelli gives a young girl much worse messages to be honest (but maybe we shouldn't get into the Lelli Kelli debate!). The boots in question are fairly plain and brown and my daughter knows that they fit her feet well. How is that unhealthy?

OP posts:

brimfull · 27/09/2009 20:42

in the 70's my mum bought me some purple suede boots with white soles and white fur trim.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

still have fond memories and photos of them

Original poster

petalpower · 27/09/2009 20:45

They sound gorgeous ggirl!!

OP posts:

ElectricElephant · 27/09/2009 20:47

Winter boots? What's wrong with wellies?

£75? You're MAD!!

Original poster

petalpower · 27/09/2009 20:50

Wellies aren't such a great look with pretty skirts at a party ElectricElephant.

OP posts:

mollyroger · 27/09/2009 20:52

ok, sorry petal, not getting at you per se, I can sorta see you feel you had no choice, but generally, I am very curmudgeonly about spending huge amounts of money on non essentials for children.
I'd have bought the boots for a christmas present.

Original poster

petalpower · 27/09/2009 20:55

That's OK mollyroger! I'm also not a fan (believe it or not) of spending stupid amounts on the DC. No Wii/DS/PSP etc in our house! I'm pretty tight when it comes to Christmas and birthdays.

OP posts:

opinionatedmother · 27/09/2009 21:07

i think it's a bit careless not to check the price before trying on.

I am currently lusting after boots for me, and even if they were as little as £75 i'd be unable to get them - DD who gets new footwear every 3 months can make do with ebay/ car boot stuff.

although, yes, if the money didn't matter at all, no reason why not to.

essentially if the manafacturer can charge £75 and people are willing to pay it, they are justified.

Northernlurker · 27/09/2009 21:35

I can't believe what a hard time the op has got on this thread.

She bought her daughter some nice boots that they will both enjoy. Yes they were more than she would have liked to pay but it was within her means.

What she was asking in her op was how the manufacturers justify that cost. Other than a few references to the exchange rate nobody has tried to answer that question. Instead her sanity and morals have been questioned.

HecatesTwopenceworth · 27/09/2009 22:14

Manufacturers don't 'justify' the cost so much as try it on

You charge what people are willing to pay. People are willing to pay £75.
If nobody bought them, they'd drop the price or discontinue them.

while they are managing to persuade people that it is worth paying £75, then they'll carry on.

cat64 · 27/09/2009 22:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

FabBakerGirlIsBack · 28/09/2009 07:59

But if you have no choice about what your child is fitted with what is the point of knowing the price first? You either pay I or they wear socks.

Romanarama · 28/09/2009 08:24

It's not even that much really. We used to live in a posh part of Rome where masses of the little boys had 99 Euro Bikkemberg trainers and 250 euro Moncler jackets. Kids shoes go from a couple of quid to a couple of hundred. Everyone has a reserve price and the range of goods on the market is such as to try to maximise possible profit by meeting everyone's reserve price.

Some people would think 75 pounds was cheap for boots for their children. Some people wouldn't even think of going to a shop that carried such cheap lines of products.

Bathsheba · 28/09/2009 08:49

Have all these children with "special" feet been formally diagnosed with special feet - its just EVERY child (or ever mother anyway) believes that their child has wide feet, or high insteps, or low insteps and I firmly believe that these are purely marketing words to make people beleive that their choice of shoes is so limited that £75 is the price they need to pay...

On another forum I read there was a woman who prided herself in her son's special requirements for eveything as everything about him was special (no clothes would fit as he was so tall and lean, no shoes would fit as she had been told his feet were almost unnaturally and unfeasibly wide...no man made fibres could touch his skin as he could possibly find them itchy which must indicate an allergy)...with a bit of probing it was discovered the her son's feet were absolutely average...but the local shoe shop had got 4 years of exclusive custom from her at £50+ a time because the lady with the badge had very easily convinced her that his feet were special and that just pandered to all her previous assumptions...

FabBakerGirlIsBack · 28/09/2009 10:20

You are entitled toy our opinion bathsheba. Do you want to see DD and Ds2's medical records?

Original poster

petalpower · 28/09/2009 11:52

You only have to look at poor DD's feet to see that they have a very high instep. I'm not trying to make her special or get myself fleeced by shoe shops. No-one has told me that I must go to particular shops. Wide feet are wide feet. High insteps are high insteps. It's not an airy-fairy thing. Shoes that have some adjustment on them are easier to find eg:velcro sandals or velcro adjusting school shoes. Boots are difficult to get your foot into if you have a high instep because they are generally made to a standard height between the sole and top surface of the boot. My daughter is not a PFB and I'm a pretty down to earth person!

OP posts:

norktasticninja · 28/09/2009 16:28

Bathsheba DD has clearly inherited my feet as well has having flat feet. I have been diagnosed as having perfectly healthy but unbelievably wide feet, they are so extreme that I'm even entitled to orthopedic shoes. I had one pair made and they were so shockingly revolting that I don't wear them and there is NO WAY I would subject DD to them either. It is quite upsetting to have freaky feet and I don't want her to have to grow up feeling any more self conscious about them than necessary.

LynetteScavo · 28/09/2009 22:03

Bathsheba, there is nothing special about my DDs feet, although the midwife did comment on them when she was born, but I have been told by a Clarks shop assistant that they can not help us, and however many times I go back, hoping they can help us, DDs feet remain too narrow for Clarks.

Horton · 28/09/2009 22:29

I can't see how buying boots is a crazy thing to do. No children need boots? You nay-sayers are all mad. I hardly ever had a pair of decent boots until I was old enough to save my birthday money and buy them myself and until I did I had chilblains every winter because my feet were freezing 80% of the time. Boots are warm, comfortable, practical items of clothing for the winter. They're not a crazy unnecessary fashion choice!

My DD, btw, has very narrow feet like me, and buying shoes is a nightmare, frankly. But I also pay the premium for something that will fit and be practical for the purpose as her feet are really important. They have to last her for her whole life. It IS a crazy price, petalpower, but I think you did the right thing. I remember the pain of having to buy the only pair of (horribly ugly) shoes in the shop that would fit me and I wish I'd had a mum like you who had found me something nice to wear as well.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Swipe left for the next trending thread