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I'm surprised to hear how bad a decline in shoe repair shops there's been. Shoes are one of the last consumer goods you can actually get repaired. There's shoe

I'm surprised to hear how bad a decline in shoe repair shops there's been. Shoes are one of the last consumer goods you can actually get repaired. There's shoes, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, watches/clocks, firearms (if you consider them a consumer good) and ... what else? Phone screens and batteries, I guess, if you don't just upgrade early instead of repairing it. White goods, in theory, but the last 7 years I've had two landlords each replace a washer, dryer, and dishwasher that were beyond economical repair. I actually replaced the drum rollers and axles on the second dryer, but it was part of a stacked set, and when the washer died, the only option was to replace both. Garments occasionally go to the tailor, but how many people truly get anything repaired vs altered to fit? Am I missing anything here? I'm not including cars, as I don't know that I can call them a consumer good. I suppose living in a city warps your perspective on the availability of shoe repair. I had work done at two separate shops in the Boston area and could probably find three or four more without much looking. That seems pretty prevalent to me, but I guess it probably isn't relative to the days before business casual was invented.

handrous 5y ago
> I'm surprised to hear how bad a decline in shoe repair shops there's been. Shoes are one of the last consumer goods you can actually get repaired. I'm legitimately worried that by the time any of my leather shoes & boots need re-soling (another couple years, probably) cobblers will be too rare and expensive to justify re-soling for anything but really high-end shoes (say, $500+, which are out of my league; I don't like wearing things that'd make me very sad if they got damaged).
morsch 5y ago
Around here, there seems to be at least one small business in every city that maintains and repairs super automatic espresso machines. It's definetly possible to get white goods repaired, and as with many things it's probably surprisingly economical to do it -- how else would the repair shops survive -- but you'd have to look at statistics. Now I feel a little bad scrapping our broken washing machine. Computers still get repaired, though with laptops it's less easy I guess. Printers, too. If you count software-only repairs (and why not), those are pretty frequent. Furniture and upholstery gets restored, though from what I know this is expensive enough that you'd only do it to very high quality stuff, not an Ikea cupboard that didn't survive moving. Or maybe you would? Ikea stuff is cheap but it ain't free. Still not a long list, but it does get longer the more time you think about it.

handrous 5y ago

> I'm surprised to hear how bad a decline in shoe repair shops there's been. Shoes are one of the last consumer goods you can actually get repaired. I'm legitimately worried that by the time any of my leather shoes & boots need re-soling (another couple years, probably) cobblers will be too rare and expensive to justify re-soling for anything but really high-end shoes (say, $500+, which are out of my league; I don't like wearing things that'd make me very sad if they got damaged).

morsch 5y ago

Around here, there seems to be at least one small business in every city that maintains and repairs super automatic espresso machines. It's definetly possible to get white goods repaired, and as with many things it's probably surprisingly economical to do it -- how else would the repair shops survive -- but you'd have to look at statistics. Now I feel a little bad scrapping our broken washing machine. Computers still get repaired, though with laptops it's less easy I guess. Printers, too. If you count software-only repairs (and why not), those are pretty frequent. Furniture and upholstery gets restored, though from what I know this is expensive enough that you'd only do it to very high quality stuff, not an Ikea cupboard that didn't survive moving. Or maybe you would? Ikea stuff is cheap but it ain't free. Still not a long list, but it does get longer the more time you think about it.