The Truth Behind Cut-Price School Uniforms
Every August we start seeing the supermarkets and chain stores wheeling out their back to school uniform advertising campaigns. The message is the same across the board: value. The truth is price crashing, cheapness, rock-bottom prices. That’s fine until you start thinking about the numbers. How can they sell you a polo for just $6.95CAD? Dress shirt, skirt, jumper, pants, or shorts for just $9.95CAD-$12.95CAD?
Some retailers or school uniform suppliers say their school uniforms work out at a cost-per-wear of just dollars or pennies per day! They are reportedly so confident that they are the cheapest school uniform retailer or supplier they will drop their prices if a cheaper alternative could be found.
But should we really be buying into this? How can we be saving money in the long run when you buy cheap, buy twice on your kids school uniforms they wear five days a week?
There is no doubt everyone wants to purchase the best quality school uniforms they can afford to ensure their kids look good at school. No one wants their kids to wear something that looks limp, shapeless or is made out of cheap curtain fabric on the hanger. The worse it could happen is you have to repurchase their full set of school uniforms after a couple of wears or washes.
At Bravo Apparel, quality is a guarantee because of our passion for perfection. We only work with school uniform suppliers who meet our rigorous product specifications.
It is a fact that somewhere, someone is paying the price for your bargain on school uniforms – if not exploited workers in some far flung sweatshop, then you the customer with stealth price increases elsewhere in store.
You should be concerned with the quality and the ethics of cheap school uniforms because there’s no way that when allowing for materials, transport and overheads in store that everyone involved could have been paid a fair wage.
At Bravo Apparel, our school uniforms are obtained by fair means and we have a comprehensive approach to the fair trade policy that extends the support of fair labour standards to all the school uniforms we source. When you are buying school uniforms from Bravo Apparel, you know you are buying products produced without exploitation and in acceptable and suitable working conditions.
Some parents could have bought the school uniforms for their kids for half the price we charge. But as far as we are concerned, if you pay $6.95CAD for a shirt, you are going to get the quality of $6.95CAD which is made with uncomfortable rubbish fabrics.
Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves: would I want my kids to go to school in an outfit of poor quality which costs $6.95CAD? One which you regarded as so cheap that it doesn’t matter what happen to it, you could just repurchase it? Or you simply don’t care if the school uniform you purchase is ill fitting, poorly made and looks like a sack-cloth?
So no matter how hard the supermarkets or chain stores try to seduce you into their cut-price school uniforms, you should remain resolute in your belief of buy cheap, buy twice. And eventually, no matter what they say, stores competing over who can produce the cheapest school uniform is little more than an exercise in unethical retailing for all concerned – workers, customers and the environment.