Running shoes on the installment plan

tccrochunis wrote:

Buy last year's model!

Its that simple.

Most shoes can be had for $70-90 that retail for $115-160 through keeping up on the market, sales, timing, & promo codes. If you go through a few shoes per year then who cares if they are last years model?

The following are a few of my recent scores:

Shoe - Msrp - Bought

NB 1080v10 - 150.00 - $82

Endorphin Speed - 160.00 - $90

Fuelcell Rebel - 130.00 - $82

Hoka Rincon 2 - 115.00 - $75

Exactly. Absolutely the way to go. In the past, I have used RunRepeat to track prices of older models, and there's no question that savings can be had this way. Some nice buys there in your list.

ViperDom wrote:

tccrochunis wrote:

Buy last year's model!

Its that simple.

Most shoes can be had for $70-90 that retail for $115-160 through keeping up on the market, sales, timing, & promo codes. If you go through a few shoes per year then who cares if they are last years model?

The following are a few of my recent scores:

Shoe - Msrp - Bought

NB 1080v10 - 150.00 - $82

Endorphin Speed - 160.00 - $90

Fuelcell Rebel - 130.00 - $82

Hoka Rincon 2 - 115.00 - $75

Neat exercise:

Fuel Cell Propel - 99 - 31

Fuel Cell Propel - 99 - 34

Zante Pursuit - 110 - 45

Kinvara 11 - 110 - 40

Freedom ISO 2 - 160 - 34

Zoom Elite 9 - 120 - 61

Cumulus 21 - 120 - 70

Launch 5 - 100 - 60

DS Trainer 25 - 130 - 55

Dynaflyte 2 - 140 - 50

Zoom Fly Flyknit - 160 - 85

Zoom Fly 3 - 160 - 75

1500 V4 - 130 - 46

Wow, some great prices on great shoes. Inquiring minds want to know: How do you do your searching for these good prices on older models?

Seriously? THIS is what you're concerned about in the world???

Take a look at the news. Watch the news for five minutes, and then tell me that your life is awful. You’re a clown, and I’m tired of the clown show. Tired of it. You’re a hobby jogger, you have the LUXURY of spending your time on a hobby, and you’re miserable because you love being miserable because that’s what you’re about. You’re a clown. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of you wasting our time with your clown show garbage. Tired of it. Rojo might wanna entertain it. I’m tired with it. Lose the website. Tired. Of it.

I’m a hobby jogger, that was supposed to go to the World Majors, and they get canceled because of the ronies? Get a life. Watch CNN. You could be, God forbid, a person in the covid ward today. You’re miserable because of an ultra runner being called an athlete? You’re a clown. Get a life. Don’t bother my life. Lose the website. You’re banned. You’re not allowed to post anymore.

All but the Zoom Fly 3 were on Amazon. I search for running shoes, select my size, sort by price and quickly scroll until I see a shoe that I know is worthwhile.

I do this search every month or two.

The trick is: when I see a crazy-good bargain like some of these, I just buy the shoe then even if I don’t necessarily need to replace anything in my rotation yet. Sometimes the cheap new pair will sit for a couple months before I need it.

I track the mileage on my shoes and replace them after 350-500 miles depending on the shoe.

If I can buy shoes for $30-$60 per pair by buying early I’m going to save significantly compared to overpaying when I really need shoes later. Sometimes there are no good deals, but there will be eventually.

Shoe - Msrp - Bought

NB 1080v10 - 150.00 - $82

Endorphin Speed - 160.00 - $90

Fuelcell Rebel - 130.00 - $82

Hoka Rincon 2 - 115.00 - $75[/quote]

Neat exercise:

Fuel Cell Propel - 99 - 31

Fuel Cell Propel - 99 - 34

Zante Pursuit - 110 - 45

Kinvara 11 - 110 - 40

Freedom ISO 2 - 160 - 34

Zoom Elite 9 - 120 - 61

Cumulus 21 - 120 - 70

Launch 5 - 100 - 60

DS Trainer 25 - 130 - 55

Dynaflyte 2 - 140 - 50

Zoom Fly Flyknit - 160 - 85

Zoom Fly 3 - 160 - 75

1500 V4 - 130 - 46[/quote]

Are you a coach? And these your purchases for the team?

tccrochunis wrote:

Wow, some great prices on great shoes. Inquiring minds want to know: How do you do your searching for these good prices on older models?

My go-too places are:

Runningwarehouse.com

Roadrunnersports.com

WalkingCo.com

All of the above have good deals on shoes as soon as the next model# increment is released and sometimes a few weeks prior. Color/Size stock varies(some times is low or out since it is the end of production run) which is why it is good to have a few places to search. Roadrunnersports has a nice initial sign-on bonus cupon that you get when signing up with their rewards program. The program is great if you buy a few shoes per year, but you can also cancel the membership and pay nothing, then open another account with a family members info to get the same coupon.

WalkingCo is a sleeper, they randomly get in some nice last years model running shoes that are listed for good price and if you hold out for their holiday sales can get an extra 20% off of the already clearance price.

Also, sometimes deals can be had direct from manufacturer website. When the new(2) Saucony Endorphin line was coming out they had both direct clearance price on website as well as an additional 20% off promo code that was circulated via STRAVA comments. Thanks Seth!!!

I use eBay and but old models which I like, very lightly used. I generally spend $35-50 per year on shoes this way.

tccrochunis wrote:

It has come to my attention that with the new "technologies" of running shoes, companies have boosted prices so significantly that you'll often find a link to an option to pay for your new running shoes on the installment plan.

Okay, this is the sign of the death of civilization.

Do we need to review the whole idea of the simplicity of the sport of running? I think we do.

Please, people, just say no. Buy last year's model, keep using the shoes that aren't worn out, anything but encourage this madness. Please, I beg of you!

While this is more common on things that not everyone can afford right away, its not just high ticket items. I've seen installment options for things costing under $3, eg a pack of pens.

Haha. Installments on pens? Just walk around a college campus or local library and scavenge the ones left behind.

But I still say that $250 for a pair of running shoes is just about the psychology of the shoe—charge like it's a unique and highly technical item and the consumer may believe the mythology of the price. The way I think of it is that any company that would bring a proposal to its product development leaders that outlined making a shoe that had anything approximating $250 of materials in it would be sent back to work on something that actually makes sense. So I have to believe that these shoes are actually <$100 shoes being marketed up to $250 (I do assume that the $100 shoes are also way overpriced, but not nearly as absurdly so). I guess riding the wave of the salivating journalism about high-tech shoes in the run up to the Olympics is as good a time as any to release something to the gullible consumer.

look on ebay and poshmark.. you can buy last seasons models very cheap. new with tags

A follow up on this thread: A recent Running Warehouse newsletter feature rates all the new carbon-fiber-plated shoes. They blurb, "carbon-plated running shoes are becoming available for any run and any runner." Then their email features four shoes priced from $200-$275.

Installment plans aside, consider the distorted price gouge this shoe technology is selling. New Balance prices their Fuel Cell Rebel v2 at $130 and their FuelCell RC Elite v2 at $225...that's a 73% price difference. Saucony's Endorphin Shift (no c-f plate) prices at $140 and their Endorphin Pro (with c-f plate) at $200...that's a 43% difference.

I suppose that for a high-end consumer product—a car, a computer—this kind of markup to pay for advanced "technology" is something we're used to, but I'm having some difficulty believing that the running shoe models aren't mainly a bandwagon/emperor's new shoes type thing.

I've worn one pair of old model carbon-fiber-plate shoes—bought some Zoom Fly SPs for $75 a few years ago—and I do think they are a nice addition to my training collection. But I'm going to be hoping that overproduction of these many new models will get me some further deals on these shoes in a year or two because those markups for new models are more than I'm willing to pay.