Blog Number Eight
How many of you like to wear name brand clothes? If you do then I’m pretty sure that you’re willing to pay for those name brand clothes. Companies like Hollister, American Eagle, Aeropostale, Abercrombie and Fitch, Ralph Lauren Polo etc. They all take advantage of their customers. Although you may not realize it, most likely you are being taken advantage of. These name brand clothes we wear and love to express ourselves with don’t really cost all that much to make. However when we walk out of these stores after a small stop n shop, our wallets and bank accounts are hurting pretty badly. According to Brandeis Labor Coalition the average worker gets paid anywhere from 0.9-0.16 cents per shirt in a foreign factory. How much do we spend in the store for the company’s retail price? An average of 15-25 dollars per shirt. According to a friend of mine who had recently shopped at American Eagle for some summer clothes, They walked out of the store with two shorts and two shirts with a total retail price of $120 dollars. If you think about how much it cost for the company to make those four items compared to how much we buy them for, don’t you think that we are being taken advantage of? In reality we have no choice but to pay these prices. No matter where we shop at the same thing is happening all over the United States. Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, and the name brand stores listed above all have the same thing in common, some may have better deals than other, but in reality we are still being taken advantage of. What can we do about it? Absolutely nothing at all.
Dear blogger,
ReplyDeleteI recently wrote a blog about the exact same problem. People do pay way too much for clothing when they were made cheaply. I hate to admit that I have over payed for these clothes too. It's hard to understand why places like "Hollister, American Eagle, Aeropostale, Abercrombie and Fitch, Ralph Lauren Polo" can have such high prices on clothing and still have so many people shopping there. I think society is to blame. Society to tells us that to be cool, we should wear these clothes. I have also seen people "walk out of the store with two shorts and two shirts with a total retail price of $120 dollars". I was shocked but I have also seen mother's buying their ungrateful children $5000 worth of clothing. The cashier seemed to be laughing at her because she was crazy for spending that much money on clothes that would soon go out of style or be on the sale rake. Thank you for this post. It's nice to know that we think that clothing is way to expensive.
Sincerely, Collard Dove
Dear writer,
ReplyDeleteThis blog was interesting because it something we all are guilty. Our society is so focused on names we will spend any amount on items that are the "it" thing. "These name brand clothes we wear and love to express ourselves with don’t really cost all that much to make." This quote stood out because the prices of shirts vary so much. In reality, the only difference between each store is the name. The shirts are all made the same. When you said, "the average worker gets paid anywhere from 0.9-0.16 cents per shirt in a foreign factory" that shocked me. The companies are making a ridiculous profits while the workers barely get by. Thank you for writing this. The clothing industry is a good example of how greedy corporations are.
- Elephant
Dear Cody,
ReplyDeleteThis post was really interesting. I had never actually thought about how concerned with name brands we all are. Companies that know this really concentrate on getting more and more people to purchase their products.
The amount that the workers get paid is terrible. When making those sorts of products, the employees should at least make a decent amount of money from it especially when the clothes are getting sold for so much money. Us, as consumers, shouldn't take too kindly to it either, but when it comes to fashion, nothing else seems to matter.
Also, the fact that the clothes we buy really don't take that much to make, stood out to me. We get so focused on fitting in and wearing what everyone else is wearing that we don't even consider that we are paying WAY too much for one shirt.
This was a great post. Thanks for writing!
Bonobo