Why Are Yeezys So Expensive Anyway? Here’s the Answer
Kanye West’s line of sneakers come at a hefty price-tag, but there are plenty of consumers who don’t bat an eye at shelling out $300 for a pair. Then you have the other consumers who dearly love the sneakers but refuse to part with this much cash for a pair of shoes that they’re likely to wear out in a year or two. This leads us to the very important question of why are Yeezys so expensive anyway? It took us a bit of research to find the answers to this question and it’s not just one reason. Here is what we learned.
They’re designer shoes
The first factor that goes into the high price of Yeezy sneakers is that they’re not intended to be a run of the mill shoe that you can get for $25. Kanye West is the shoe designer who came up with the initial idea for the Yeezy line. While he didn’t have any intention of making the brand so expensive that people couldn’t afford them, he did want to give the average person a sneaker that was genuinely high-quality and considered to be a high-end designer accessory that had a higher value than the average sneaker. The price for these shoes is roughly half of what some of their more high-end designer counterparts run for when compared with similar models, so, it could be a lot worse for fans of Yeezy sneakers.
Does the explanation hold water?
One Yeezy enthusiast on Quora pointed out that the Yeezy line ranges between $250 to $550 a pair. When compared to some of the other luxury sneaker brands, the commentor pointed out that there isn’t nearly as much work that has gone into the construction of Yeezys as there is with the handcrafted variety that takes hours of labor to complete. He pointed out that a comparison of the two doesn’t come close to justifying the inflated price for Yeezys when compared to established designer brands.
Everyone has their own opinion
When it comes to establishing the value of an item, it seems that consumers have widely differing opinions. While the Quora contributor had a good point about the time spent in the production of Yeezy’s he wasn’t wrong, but here’s another point of view that may help to explain why Yeezy’s are so expensive. When the Yeezy 750 Boost was released in 2015, it was during a very special time in the National Basketball Association’s season. This was a very special Adidas release, making it significant to the brand, and it was during NBA All-Star Week, which is a very special occasion. The Yeezy line took the center stage, showing that it was the preferred model by consumers, and the Yeezy 350 Boost in particular even won the 2015 Best Shoes of the Year award. This model is helping to define the sneaker culture of the decade and it’s largely due to preference and demand.
Limited Editions
If we’re going to make comparisons of high priced sneakers, then it’s important to note that the other comparable brands such as Nike, and others make limited-edition releases. If you look at some of the prices that are charged for the other brands’ limited editions, the Yeezy’s don’t seem to be out of line in their pricing and in some cases, they’re even lower in price. You’re not going to get them for bargain basement prices unless you choose to buy used, but as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Low numbers of limited editions have kept the demand high and when the supplies ran out, you could find Yeezys offered for sale by those who had the insight to stockpile new pairs for later sale at a much higher price. This caused the price to soar even higher when they were hard to acquire.
Scarcity created a cult following and this, in turn, drove the value of the Yeezy’s brand yet higher. No businessman is going to lower the value of a product to make them cheap if there isn’t ample reason, and since they were selling out like hotcakes, there was no justification for lowering the cost of Yeezys. Of course, there are consumers who will complain about the price and will even refuse to pay it, but when you have hordes who are willing to pay the asking price, then the manufacturer has no incentive whatsoever to lower the price. It’s just a matter of good business sense.
West and Adidas brought somewhat of a solution to this problem by increasing the production numbers of the Yeezy shoes, making them more readily available. While this hasn’t lowered the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for Yeezys, it has made them more plentiful and cut down on the number of vendors who can sell them at inflated prices.
Final thoughts
Kanye West has been remarkably successful with his designer line of shoes that he calls Yeezys. They’ve been big sellers from the time that they first hit the retail shelves in 2015. Are Yeezy’s really all that expensive? The answer is that yes, they’re high priced, but they’re also a part of an exclusive line of shoes for those who demand exclusivity. They cater to the specific needs of a certain group, and although not everyone needs to have a high-priced pair of sneakers, there are those who do. Yeezy’s are marketed to a target clientele and there is no indication that the prices of these award-winning sneakers will change at any time in the near future. Attach the Adidas brand, the Kanye West name as a designer and the fact that there’s a huge demand for them are all the factors that combine to make them expensive sneakers.
