Ask Your Question today
I got a pair of my shoes repaired, upon picking them up I asked how much it would cost and he said "are you rich or are you poor?" I replied "poor?" He said "$10" and I said take "$15"
Im not really rich or poor so I didn't know what to do.
I mean given the profession of shoe repair that's a good question. Since you either deal with people on the extremes of the financial spectrum.
You either have too little money to get new shoes. Or you are rich and you wanna keep your broken in shoe in good working order. Practically everyone in between just buys new shoes when theirs is worn through. Then deals with breaking them in.
or maybe just in-between and recognize that the cost of minor repairs - or resoling the shoes just makes sense if the shoes were of decent quality.
For dress shoes I got hooked on Allen Edmund's Shoes many decades ago (once my feet sunk into the cork and it molded to match my feet... I had never felt such comfort before - and cold not stand to wear my previous other dress shoes as they were now uncomfortable). Allen Edmund are fairly expensive shoes - but well worth it and last forever if you take care of them.
Allen Edmund's resoles their shoes, and also offers various levels of "recrafting" of the shoes (up to stripping the leather of most of the original dye, and redying and complete refinish of the leather along with new soles and new cork inner soles.
I actually had about a 20 year old pair where the side seam had split (and previously resoled by Allen Edmund's) - and I figured it was time to just replace them. I stopped in at the store (I live about an hour from their factory) and explained to the gentleman why I was looking to replace my shoes... and he asked me if I could go home an get them - so he could inspect them.
I did so, and he was training a new clerk - and he looked at the shoes and started out with: Great - you have taken really good care of them. Then he proceeded to show the new clerk all the indications of how well I had taken care of them; and how obviously different they were from the previous pair of shoes that they had looked at earlier that day (which apparently were not taken care of).
When he was done he told both me and the new clerk that the side-seam should not have split like that in well cared shoes. I was to just go pick out a new pair of the same kind or its value or less - and they would be considered a warranty replacement.
I've got 4 different pairs... Some 30 years old. Shoes for different occasions and they all will last me the rest of my life. I'm never under-dressed with them in any business or professional environment. I've had other people recognize them as well, which always brings a positive comment.
Quality shoes are always worth repairing. Trust me - even the rich and wealthy do it.