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What to take care of when buying cheap clothes? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago by Subject6051@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So, the wall was selling shirts for insanely cheap prices and I do not understand where they are making a profit.

I got a shirt which should cost 8 dollars for 2.5 and I don't know if I can just wear them without concern.

Are cheap shirts safe to wear? Idk do they use chemicals which are bad for me? They made this insanely cheap and I don't know what gives! It all says 100% cotton and its from a trusted brand but the mystery of the price still remains. I need to know before loading up on these things.

Also, bonus question, is white coloring agent more or less harmful than other colors? (Assume the most frequently used coloring agents)

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[–] yardy_sardley@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago

I do not understand where they are making a profit

I think you're overestimating how much money it costs to produce this stuff. Economies of scale and certain other practices in this specific industry allow retailers to sell stuff at a significant markup even when it seems like they're giving customers a heavy discount.

But even with relatively large markup percentages, the low price point means retailers have to move incredible volumes in order to make enough money to stay open. So they end up using aggressive marketing tactics to get people to come in the door and start impulsively buying stuff.

My intuition is that those shirts are simply from last season and didn't sell well enough or they've gone out of fashion. The store is using it as an opportunity to put a big 80% off sign out front and whip potential customers into a frenzy. Could also be a scheme to recover costs from online returns. But I really doubt there is anything wrong or even different about those shirts.

Source: worked in clothing retail for a several years