Philippine retail puzzler:
Cheaper to order overseas
and ship these Rockport, Clarks
Much as Money-Go-Round prefers to help Philippine retailers, sometimes the price differential between local and foreign shops is so substantial that even patriotism surrenders to the bargain.
Case in point: This particular pair of walking shoes from Rockport.
The local and official Rockport dealer retails these "Ubals" for P7,490 a pair.
A slightly different version, with stripes on the sides for the US variant rather than a downward graph for the local pair, sells in Saks OFF 5TH for P2,447.
Check and compare the screenshots below:
Even with the added shipping (actually air freight)+tax, the Rockports ordered online halfway round the world still comes out an incredible 40% cheaper.
(To think that the Rockports, made in Vietnam, crossed the Pacific twice!)
Even better for Filipinos, Saks now allows payments through GCash.
Aside from the option of paying in pesos, GCash should save the local shopper from the 1% "cross-border fee" being tacked on by locally-issued credit cards for overseas purchases.
As for Clarks, go and compare the screenshots below of its Un Aldric loafers, one from Amazon and one from the official Philippine retailer.
Add the $21.47 airfreight and delivery fees, and the Amazon order still comes out half-the-price of the local tag, would you believe it!
And even at the height of the pandemic lockdown, the US orders were delivered to Makati in a week, with the merchandise double-boxed for extra protection. Inside, each shoe is buffered by a cardboard shoe tree and cocooned with bubble wrap.
The Saks package even comes with an olfactory shopping high; the shoe box upon opening smells like, as we used to say when we were kids, stateside.
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