Why the same shoe has two prices
The stores we track disagree about a shoe a newer version has replaced, and agree about a shoe that is still the current version.
Each price below is one store's floor for the whole shoe — the lowest it lists in any size, colourway or gender, in stock — taken from a single run, the one dated . A shoe enters only where two or more of the stores priced it in that run; the rest have no gap to measure, which is not a gap of nothing.
| Measure | Replaced | Current |
|---|---|---|
| Shoes compared | 140 | 223 |
| Median gap between stores | $50.02 | $0.05 |
| As a share | 56% | 0% |
| At one price everywhere | 3 | 11 |
Why the gap opens
The likeliest reason is minimum advertised price. A brand sets a floor its stockists agree not to advertise below, so for as long as a shoe is the current version the stores show one number and the only thing that differs is the postage. That agreement stops mattering when the version does. A shop still holding last year's stock prices it against its own shelf — how many pairs are left, how long they have been there, whether the new one is already in the window — and no two shops answer that the same way.
We measure the gap and not the cause. We do not see the agreements, and a shop may be pricing the older shoe low for reasons that have nothing to do with one.
What that means if you are buying
On a shoe that is still the current version, ringing round is mostly wasted effort: pick the shop you like and buy it there. On the version before it, the first shop you look in is unlikely to be the cheapest, and the difference is worth the two minutes it takes to check.
Every shoe we track — each one priced across the stores that hold it.