Once-Trendy Crocs Could Be on Their Last Legs

Washington Post ^ | 7-16-09 | Ylan Q. Mui

[kalee]

I have a pair of brown slides with turquise bows that I love. Off to Hallmark to buy another pair or two.

[SIDENET]

Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler wore them. Your grandma wore them.

These days, Steve Tyler LOOKS like someone's grandma.

[discostu]

Actually Crocs tried to expand, nobody bought their secondary products.

[Alex Murphy]

I just paid six bucks for mine. They’re practically giving them away.

You overpaid. The genius of Crocs is that they have almost zero labor involved in making them. It's a shoe that's made via injection molding - essentially, you squirt foamed goo into a mold and bake until cured. I have a Dilbert squishy figure on my desk that costs less than a pair of Crocs, and it's made by the same process.

Any factory capable of doing automated injection molding can make Crocs - all they need is the right goo and a set of molds. In terms of production costs, there's no reason that Crocs should command standard footwear prices. Fashion and novelty were the only real price drivers.

[EggsAckley]

Agreed. At six bucks I probably paid three times what the material costs were.

I still like them, though.

[Ramius]

Oh, yeah, they’re far better than flip-flops and serve pretty much the same function.

[dalereed]

No loss, i’ve never heard of them!

[Darnright]

They may not be trendy anymore, but the CrocsRX ones do have a place in society:

http://www.orthoticshop.com/blog/crocs-rx-versus-crocs-retail/

I’ve got friends who are diabetic who wear the things all of the time.

[AnnaZ]

Hmmm... I just bought another pair for my son last week at REI... will I have to stock up on them for my kids? They are really the best things for them in the summer and they last forever (his last pair lasted for over 2 years 'til he lost them!).

[mickey finn]

I own a pair of cammo frocs that I bought three years ago. Very ugly, but they serve many functions. I love them when I camp because I can slip them on and get out of the tent quick to start coffee and relieve myself. They are better on the beach and when boating. They wash off easy, and don't have straps like TEVAS, which hold sand and rip your skin to shreds. TEVAS also make my feet stink to high hell, even though they claim to use some antibacterial rubber. I have no stinkfoot problems with crocs.

[Moonman62]

It was a hot IPO at one time.

[TN4Liberty]

Great at the beach, on the boat, at a campsite, in lieu of bedroom slippers, and if you have ever had plantar faciaitis or gout, they are the best things ever. I have the beach sandals and another sandal type pair (fit a little snugger and better for uneven surfaces) and they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn, far more comfortable than shoes costing 4 times as much. Durable, versatile, and practical.

I think all these people who are blowing them off because of the looks or because they are no longer in vogue are secretly slaves to fashion themselves, although they would never admit it.

[SoKatt]

They’re hideously ugly but they’re GREAT gardening shoes! :)

[Richard Kimball]

Arnold was a movie character who came to life. In the movies, he always wore a red t shirt, blue jeans and brown boots. When he came to life, he looked in his closet, and there were about twenty pairs of blue jeans, twenty red t shirts, and twenty pairs of brown boots, and nothing else.

Converse is part of Nike now, and diversifying it's product line. I think the thing about Converse is that it's a very functional product. I grew up wearing them.

If it wasn't for the fact that I don't want to look stupid, I'd still wear them. They're a kid's product, and I'm not a kid anymore.

[antiRepublicrat]

Doc Marten's survives

Doc Marten's also diversified. There must be 30 times as many Doc varieties as there were 20 years ago.

[Richard Kimball]

My oldest daughter, the wild one, was one of the first to buy Doc Martens. At that time, the only place to buy them was at the counter-culture goth/emo shops. She wore them every day until the first time she saw Doc Martens for sale at the mall. She never wore them a day after that.

I think the Crocs were slightly different than Doc Martens, as the Doc Martens primary appeal was their counter culture attitude. As such, people in the mall were good candidates for Crocs, but not for Doc Martens.

The Doc Martens were originally popularized by the skinheads because they resembled the boots Nazis wore in WWII. I know a lot of the kids were convinced that Doc Martens was the company that made the Nazi boots. That's untrue, although the founder of Doc Martens, Dr. Klaus Maertens, was a Nazi in WWII.

[Richard Kimball]

No kidding. Check out the USA Doc Marten site:

http://www.dmusastore.com/c-1-mens.aspx

Not much of the storm trooper/Neo Nazi image there.

[conservativegranny]

I purchased my first pair to use for gardening clogs. They were easy to hose off when muddy. When I developed plantar facilitis I discovered how comfortable they were. But I thought they were too ugly to wear aside from gardening and taking out the trash.

I did order a pair of their flip flops to wear after I had toe surgery and they were very comfortable. People with PF are not supposed to wear flip flops but these were much more substantial than the cheap pairs you find at Walmart and at the time I couldn’t wear regular shoes.

I am going to check out the footwear catalogs and see if they are at clearance prices and pick up another pair or two.

I have a feeling that you will still be able to buy knockoffs.