Nike vrs. Sketchers - who will win?

Cheap shoes that are a favorite of the AARP set, versus ghetto shoes that cost $200 a pair.  Who wins?

I recently read that NIKE, the preeminent sneaker company, has experienced a decline in sales after venturing into the "lifestyles" segment (whatever that is).   It is not the first time that storied company has made mis-steps. The history of NIKE, like the history of sneakers in general, is fascinating.

Legend has it that the original "waffle trainer" was literally made by melting sheets of polyurethane rubber in a waffle iron.  The founder of the company was selling them out of the trunk of his car at running events and business took off - boosted by the running/jogging craze of the 1970s.

Then disaster struck. They decided to sell fashion shoes - tiny wrestling-style sneakers clad in gold lamé, which left their traditional buyers scratching their heads. The company was headed for the brink, when a solo inventor (Rudy) approached them with his "AIR" sole invention, and the rest is history.

Well, that history includes signing Michael Jordan (a brand still sold today!) for one of the earliest sneaker endorsement contracts (a business worth millions if not billions, today) and the brand really took off.

There were, however, still mis-steps.  The sneakers were expensive and certain models created a beany-baby-like craze.  Inner-city kids started shooting each other over sneakers, and this created bad optics for the company.

But in the suburbs, sneakers in general became some sort of status symbol, like the unobtainable handbag or the fancy Swiss watch.  Fancy Italian loafers were out - expensive sneakers the color of tennis balls or highway cones, were in  - even for office wear!

People started buying sneakers not to wear, but collect!

But that changed recently due to a number of factors.  Spending $100-$200 (or more!) on a pair of shoes seemed foolhardy in a tightening economy - at least for some of us.  And the shoes were hard to put on, for an aging population, and didn't last more than a year or two before the expanded polyurethane foam soles compressed, or the rubber delaminated (Shoe Goo only works once!).

Enter Sketchers. Originally a "Sk8er Dude" brand, it morphed into a slip-on shoe popular with the elderly and obese (which describes half of America these days).  These started out as slipper-like shoes, and as I noted at the time, pretty poor for walking.  But while NIKE was sketching out their designs for yet more bizarre-looking footware, Sketchers came up with new designs that were more functional and comfortable - in particular, making the shoes fit tightly yet comfortably, so that you can wear a "slip-on" shoe for extended walking.

Priced at $35 and up (and not much more) they have been selling like hotcakes.  This makes me wonder whether NIKE's decline in sales could be linked to the rise of Sketchers.  Cheap, comfortable shoes, with largely conservative styling, which appeal to an aging demographic - sounds like a market winner.

Expensive, gaudy shoes, which require lacing and are more popular with the younger, urban set - is that a growing demographic in aging, fat America?

But, take heart, NIKE!  Sketchers was recently acquired by venture capital - and you know they can screw up a wet dream!

Fix or Replace?

Sometimes, it is just easier to install new parts.

I mentioned before how the seatbelt switch on the driver's seat on the Mercedes Sprinter van went bad - or more precisely, the wire connecting the switch to the SRS (Supplemental Restraint System) computer was severed when Mr. See rotated the seat around.

It was kind of appalling, actually, how it was put together.  Two tiny thin wires were snaked through a hole in the seat base and just hung there, unprotected, inches from the seat slide mechanism and a host of sharp metal edges. To be fair, this was exacerbated by the seat swivel that Winnebago installed - providing a guillotine for this tiny helpless wire.

People think Mercedes are fancy cars, but once you look underneath, well, you realize they are just cars.  And a commercial van? Acres of cheap plastic.  For example, the top of the seat base is covered with a thin layer of plastic foam of some sort, that just slides in place.  Granted, there are electrical components in each seat base (Mercedes relays and fuses under the driver's seat, Winnebago power relays and circuit breakers under the passenger seat).  But to me, that would be all the more reason to cover this with something more substantial than corrugated cardboard.

Anyway, I contemplated soldering the wires back together and was not looking forward to splicing tiny wires under the seat.  On a whim, I checked online for a new seatbelt buckle and found one, on eBay, for only $38 with free shipping.  For that much, why solder?

The part came in a few days and I removed the seat (which was held in place with those star-shaped bolt heads - fortunately, I had a set of matching sockets) and cleaned out 10 years of dust and dog hair from the seat base.  The new seatbelt buckle fit right in, and I tested it first by plugging it into the wiring harness and whoopee, the SRS light went out (but the error code did not reset!).  I cleaned everything really well and re-installed the foam plastic cover, this time aided by a plethora of self-drilling, self-taping screws.  Put the seat back (and the rotating base - heavy!) and all is good.

Or is it?

I splurged $110 on a new code reader - one that reads and resets codes for all the computers in the vehicle - and there are several, I learned.  Sure enough, there was an SRS error code for "driver's side seat switch" which I reset and it went away for good.  Error codes in auto computers are interesting.  Some OBDII codes (On Board [Engine] Diagnostics II) won't set off the "check engine" light until they persist for some time, or if a certain number of codes are present.  It all depends on the type of code and the manufacturer.  I guess the idea is to eliminate false alarms.

And false alarms are a problem.  I remember jump-starting one of my E36 BMWs (328iC) and it set off the check engine light.  I pulled out my trusty code reader and it showed a litany of errors (including, not surprisingly, low voltage) which, when reset, went away.  "Hard" errors usually come back right away, which is why resetting codes is a good first step (and maybe the last step) in diagnosing the problem.

For example, another E36 was throwing a "camshaft position sensor" code, which, when reset, would come back right away.  The camshaft position sensor was bad and needed to be replaced (not an expensive part, nor a difficult job, either).   On the other hand, our E53 (X5 3.0) would throw an "oxygen sensor adaptation limit reached" code, which, when reset, would go away (and the CE light go out) for months at a time - a classic "soft" error.   The problem in that case was a tiny pinhole leak in the intake elbow, allowing un-metered air into the system, confusing the hell out of the mass air flow sensor and the ECU. The rubber elbow was a $14 part, held in place with two band clamps - a five minute job, once the problem is diagnosed.  You'd be surprised how many dealer mechanics would replace the oxygen sensors (all four of 'em!) and charge the client $1500 or more, rather than replace this $14 elbow.

SRS codes are more strict.  Like I said before, on our E36's, people would kick under the seat, loosening these seat switch wires which would set off the SRS light.  An OBD II error (CE light) might reset itself if the physical error is cleared, after so many starts.  Not so the SRS!  So you need an SRS reset tool to clear the code in that case.

Speaking of false alarms, the "loose gas cap" code frustrated more than one car owner.   OBD II cars (1995 and up) have a system to detect air leaks in the fuel system.  If a gas cap is loose, the computer treats this as a leak in the system somewhere.  By the way, over-tightening the gas cap is not the answer!  As I learned the hard way, that only serves to compress the gasket too much, causing a leak.  If the instructions say "tighten to one click" (as it does on our KIA) then one click it is - not three!  Sometimes you just have to break down and buy a new gas cap, though.

Cars in the "good old days" had vented gas caps, and over time, gallons of gas would slowly evaporate from the tank.  But hey, gas is like 35 cents a gallon - who cares?  But "unburned hydrocarbons" are a big source of smog, and in 1960s Los Angeles, you could not see more than a few blocks on a bad smog day.  So as part of EPA emissions requirements, gas tanks were sealed.

Emissions aren't just from the tailpipe, but include things like tire dust and brake dust - and evaporating gas (which is why lawnmower gas cans have these annoying nozzles these days).  With regard to the former, look around a parking garage sometime and check out all that black dirt-like powder everywhere.  Yea,, tire dust.   And brakes? asbestos dust - back in the "good old days."  Tires last a lot longer today, thanks in part to better tire compounds.  And we no longer use asbestos in brake pads.  You can have the "good old days" - I prefer to live in the modern world.

But getting back to loose gas cap codes, manufacturers realized they were losing a lot of customer goodwill when a loose gas cap caused an expensive trip to the dealer.  So, many added stickers on the fuel door advising owners of the problem, or even a "loose gas cap reset" button on the dash.  But the problem still persists.

But getting back to the topic at hand, why spend $38 on a new seatbelt buckle rather than splice the wires?  Well, as I have learned over the years, both as a Technician and Engineer, every connector or splice in a wire is a potential failure point.  Wires generally do not fail if left alone.  They only fail if they are subject to repeated flexing or are not properly grommeted when passing through a sheetmetal hole, or some other form of mechanical malfeasance. But just sitting there they last forever.

Connectors, cuts, and splices, on the other hand, are failure-prone.  And I've see far-too-often, people try to save a few dollars splicing wires on a generic oxygen sensor and wondering why it doesn't work - when a plug-and-play factory OEM part is only a few dollars more (and a lot less hassle to install!).

Of course, to help prevent a replay of the original incident, I sheathed the seatbelt switch wires in corrugated plastic wire loom, which I carefully wire-tied on each end to hold it in place to the seat and seat base.  Then, I made sure that the shielded wire would not bind or get caught in the mechanism, regardless how the seat was moved or swiveled.  Problem solved - hopefully.

This was a pretty simple setup, too.  Some cars have several wires.  On the E36 passenger seat were wires for the seatbelt buckle (to check that you were buckled in) another set for the "seat sensor" (to detect the presence of a passenger) and a third set for the explosive device (!!) that cinched the seat belt tight in the event of a crash.  And that was back in 1997.

One final word on error codes.  I was surprised how many systems there were on the Mercedes Sprinter van - or how many there were potentially.  When I hit "scan all devices" the code reader tool went through a litany of devices (nearly a dozen as I recall), including some not on our vehicle, such as backup radar, radar cruise control, and the like.  Each system has its own microprocessor and each has its own set of error codes.

If all this sounds daunting, it isn't.   Like wires, most electronic components work just fine if left alone.  In addition to loose gas caps or disturbed wires, the biggest offender is often loose or corroded connectors.  A "wheel sensor" for the ABS (anti-lock brake system) is just a coil sending out a tiny signal generated by a notched part of the wheel hub to indicate rotation.  Coils like this rarely wear out, but the connector is located in the wheel well, where it is splashed with water, snow, salt, sand, and road debris.   Cleaning the contacts and applying dielectric grease often fixes the problem.  Code-monkey mechanics, on the other hand, blindly replace the part, believing (falsely) that just because a part is mentioned in an error code, then that part must be replaced.

Such is not always the case.

Screen Time!

The smart phone has replaced television, books, magazines, the radio, stereo systems, newspapers, gaming consoles, computers, and even movies.  Oddly enough, some people even use it as a telephone!

Screen time has become a big issue these days.  People complain they are addicted to the smart phone or that kids are spending too much time staring at screens.  This sounds to me like an echo from an earlier time when people worried so much about how much television they watched - and their kids watched.  Average person, back then, watched 4 hours or more a day!

If you add in the time spent reading books, magazines, and newspapers, well, it pretty much equals the amount of "screen time" people spend on their phones.  Remember when "flip phones" first came out and the cashiers at WalMart would spend all day on the phone, even while checking out your groceries?

The point is (and I did have one) that we have simply transferred our obsessive-compulsive behavior from one type of technology to another.  Spending four hours a day staring at your phone is no worse (or no better) that gaming for four hours a day, or watching banal network teevee for the same time period - or any activity that consumes large portions of your "free" time or even encroaches on your not-so-free time.

In a sense, the smart phone has merely consolidated all of our "time-wasters" into one device.

But something else is afoot.  Some are calling it "the dead internet" - going online these days is as unfulfilling as humping one of those inflatable sex dolls.  It just isn't even close to real satisfaction.  Similarly, the Internet these days seems to be one giant shilling machine, trying to sell, sell, sell you something, as if buying stuff was the answer to all of life's little problems.

I wrote before how tourist attractions always have a gift shop that you have to exit through, and how tourists feel obligated to buy junky tchotchke whether they need it or not.  To most people, vacation means a series of spending opportunities, and people will eagerly queue up to buy things or get tickets to an attraction.

The people running the Internet (and they are running it, now) realized this and turned every Google inquiry into a sale opportunity.  Pretty soon - if not already - the Internet will be reduced to merely AI-generated superficiality and "sponsored content" links.

Even - or especially - the "News" is all about selling - selling your eyeballs to advertisers or your soul to a political party.  News articles are no longer informative, but just click-bait and rage-bait to get you to watch some ads.  Even "mainstream" news sources preface article titles with phrases such as "You'll never believe..." (you will) or "Is it true that..." (no, it is not) just to get you to click.

I am done with articles that have titles like, "You'll never believe what outrageous thing Trump said/did today!"  Let me guess - something outrageously stupid, right?  Saved us all a click.

I have been trying, instead, to read more books, preferably the real kind you hold, or failing that, the thousands stored on our pad device.

Rather than read the news or look at social media, I have found an entertaining and educational alternative.  I go on Wikipedia and hit "random article" and read about some obscure British politician, a soccer (football player) who died in 1996, a long-dead English cricketer, a famous Bollywood actor, an obscure township in Minnesota, or a random train station in Japan.  There is nothing to sell or buy - although Wikipedia does whore for donations about once a year.  There is little in the way of a political agenda, despite the claims by the GOP that reality has a left-wing bias. Best of all, no AI-generated spew or sponsored content ads.

This is not to say all the articles are unbiased.  The wiki nature of the site allows people to edit articles and often people try to "spin" an article with a certain slant, or merely vandalize a page if they don't like the topic.  But usually such vandalism is cleaned up in short order, and it isn't hard to spot a political white-wash job on some other pages.  Since I am reading random articles, well, there is little in the way of click-bait or rage-bait on the agenda.

It feels good  to learn something new, even if it seems like useless information at the time.  One quickly realizes that there is a lot that most all of us don't know, which gives me (at least) a feeling of awe and wonderment about our world.

It isn't the solution to the screen time problem, but it beats Facebook, Tick-Tock, or Reddit!

Warning Signs!

There are some things to look out for when dealing with online vendors!

My search for the microwave/convection oven/air fryer that will fit the 20" x 13" cabinet hole in our camper continues.  I found a "Furrion" microwave that might fit, but it was over $400.  A site called "nomadicsupply.com" had it for $299 and the mounting bracket for another $32.  More than I wanted to pay, but the best price I could find.

Their prices were slightly higher than those listed on the Furrion website, but sadly, it appears that consumers cannot order directly from the manufacturer.  The first thing that made me cautious about using these folks was this mandatory ToS that you had to agree to:

 Nomadic Supply Company is in business to protect our planet by directly funding donations to conservation nonprofits. Our dedicated & hardworking employees enable us to further this mission, so we do not allow anyone to compromise the wellness of our staff with entitled behavior, bullying, or mistreatment. If you wish to be a customer & a part of our community, you agree to be kind, compassionate, & patient with the staff at Nomadic Supply Company & our partner brands. Anyone who isn't capable of being kind & compassionate should simply shop elsewhere. Checking this box is a legally binding agreement indicating that I have read & that I agree to the terms and conditions, the Code of Ethics, the Order Cancellation Policy, & the Return Policy, & I consent to receive both email & SMS order updates. 

I doubt any of that is enforceable, quite frankly.  But it says volumes about the people running the company and they way they view their customers. It also implies they have a lot of angry customers, too.

The next thing that I noticed was "Route" rearing its ugly head - wanting $9.99 for "shipping protection" which you have to uncheck.  Never do business with anyone who slaps "route" on your purchase.

The default payment method is ACH debit, which requires you to cough up your bank routing and account numbers.  Might as well give them your Social Security number and Mother's maiden name while you are at it!  It also means that, if there is some dispute about the product, you cannot dispute the  purchase with your bank (chargeback).  If you do use a credit card, they charge a 2.9% fee with "Stripe" to process the card (something that used to be against the ToS of the credit card companies!).

But wait, there's more.  If you pay by credit card, your order may be "flagged" for fraud:

If you choose to pay via credit card, Stripe Payments will charge you a non-refundable 2.9% transaction fee. You can avoid the transaction fee by paying via ACH Bank Transfer (eCheck). If you choose to pay by any method other than ACH (eCheck) Bank-to-Bank Transfer your order may be held for review and you may be required to complete a credit card authorization form to prevent fraud.

What does this mean?  I suspect it is an attempt to foil charge-backs from angry customers who never received their goods or received the wrong item or damaged goods.  When we look online to scam reporting sites, we start to understand why. The BBB (ordinarily worthless) reports several people complaining about damaged or never-received goods as well as problems contacting the company. Tellingly, Nomadic Supply did not bother to answer any of the complaints.  If a company doesn't have their phone number and other contact information readily available on their site, walk away.

After seeing all that, I decided not to do business with them.  Maybe prices may be higher elsewhere, but internet commerce is based entirely on trust.  And it is clear that "nomadic supply" has some trust issues - going both ways.

Why not just buy a regular microwave/air fryer/convection oven and then shove it in the hole?  Well, a cabinet-mounted microwave needs to be vented and this means a duct leading out the front through the faceplate.  The faceplate, in turn, keeps the microwave from falling out of the cabinet as you go down the road.  If not vented, the heat from the convection oven or air fryer (same thing, really) will burn down the camper.

Why not just buy from Amazon?  Good question.  As these are a niche product, Amazon doesn't carry a large selection - not one small enough to fit through a 20"x13" hole, anyway.  But we'll keep looking!

Time was, you could buy from small companies like this and get better prices and good service.  An individual could set up a quick e-commerce site on eBay and sell product. Today, it is all about arbitrage or drop-shipping.  Just put up a website (or eBay store) offering other people's products for 10% more than what they are selling for elsewhere.  Use SEO to make sure your listing appears first, and then just drop-ship to the buyer.

Problem with the arbitrage model is customer service, which is messy and time-consuming.  The people selling to drop-shippers are probably happy to foist this burden onto these arbitragers. The drop-shippers are just Mom&Pop operations (often just Mom OR Pop) and get overwhelmed with customer requests.  If you read between the lines of the text quoted above from the Nomadic Supply site, well, it tells a story.  They even admit, on their "contact" page that they are overwhelmed with e-mails on a daily basis.

You hire more people to deal with customers and you lose your profit margin. This is why arbitrage simply doesn't work.  Retail is a tough business of razor-thin margins. Mark-ups might be good, but overhead swallows up those "profits" before they are even earned.

Maybe some folks shouldn't be in business.  Arbitrage sounds like an effortless way to make money, but the reality is, being a merchant is a cut-throat business and takes a lot more time and energy than the "make money online through arbitrage!" promotions imply.

In fact, like anything else, the real money isn't in doing the thing, but in selling seminars and kits instructing others how to do the thing.

RV Parts Scam Site?

When you see something for sale for 1/4 the normal price, beware!

Mark wants to replace the microwave in the van with a combination microwave, convection oven, and air fryer.  I was looking at microwaves at Walmart and the cheapest ones are $65.  I remember only a few years ago, they were selling for the startlingly low price of $25.  But someone told me there is now a "microwave shortage" (read: price gouging). Oddly enough, there were several dozen stacked up at Walmart.  So much for the shortage!

And yes, they had a combination microwave, convection oven, and air fryer for about $225.  And that is for a tabletop model, not a built-in unit with forward venting.

Anyway, we measured the opening and found a Furrion FR77AD microwave that seems to fit our existing opening in the cabinet.  With the mounting bracket (faceplate) it comes to over $400 (!!).  I searched online for cheaper alternatives and found most people were selling them for about the same price.

Then I found this.  Not only was it less, it was a startlingly amount less - less than 1/4 the ordinary sales price!  $87.80 - what an odd number.  Who was "premiumrvparts.com" and why were they selling so cheaply?  Going out of business?  Well, it turns out the domain name is only a few months old, and the "trustmeter" on "scam detector" gives it a 5.7 - a very low score.  I look at other products on their page and see that everything is selling for a quarter or less of ordinary retail prices. They are fighting inflation!

Notably missing is an address or phone number for the company.  If it looks like a scam, smells like a scam, and sounds like a scam - it even tastes like one! - it probably is one,  If these prices were real, someone could make a lot of money arbitraging these items on eBay and then having them shipped directly from this (apparently nonexistent) company.

And I was inclined to get reeled in, too.  I was looking for a Genie, and Genies can be deceiving.  There it was, like a mirage in the desert - a microwave combo that would fit the opening, cost less than a cheap tabletop model!  Free shipping to boot!  But Genies lie - there are no Casita trailers for $1957 or Harley Davidsons for $1500 - as you see (or used to see) all the time on Craigslist.

But why such penny-ante cons?  Sure, they can cheat me out of $87.50 but is it worth the hassle?  On the other hand, they probably pasted the code from some other RV parts site, and it took some third-world computer genius less and a day to set up the site.  And once shut down, a matter of minutes to move the site to a new domain and start all over again.  In the meantime, they can sell credit card numbers on the side.

UPDATE:  I skimmed the site and saw dozens of products for sale for less than 1/4 of retail price (and I know pricing in the RV world!).  E-Trailer lists the same items for far more money, often by a factor of four or more.  They also put an "E-Trailer" logo hidden in all of their product pictures.  Hey, guess what?  Guess whose logo appears on the pages of "premiumrvparts.com"?  Yup, the photos were "scraped" from E-Trailer.  

I will have to revisit that site in a few months and see if they are still around.  I am guessing that once they "sell" a few items, they will vanish like the wind.

UPDATE:  Apparently my suspicions were correct.  The same site is resurrected from time to time under different names, such as "getrvparts.com" or the like.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

UPDATE:  A message appears in my SPAM box today from "mail@order.xinwushop.xyz" offering an additional 20% off on the microwave combo with free shipping!  Only five bucks more than the cheapest model from WalMart!

Oops! Looks like you left something behind

Hi Robert Bell,

We noticed that you added some great items to your cart but didn’t complete your purchase. If you got distracted or had any trouble, no worries—we saved everything for you.

To make it even better, here’s a little thank-you from us: 20% OFF your order if you complete it by 2025-09-28.

Subtotal	USD 87.80
Discount (20% OFF)	− USD17.56
Total	USD 70.24

Wow!  What a deal!  Sounds too good to be true! (It is!).

UPDATE:  Same e-mail, a few hours later, this time from "order@order.ordershops.xyz"

The xyz domain is cursed!