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@waldoj I buy about one pair per year because I wear them out by walking a lot… seven does seem high.

@waldoj that is a lot :O

sounds like one of those situations where the average is highly distorted by outliers. Would love to see the distribution of the numbers underlying this!

@chartgerink @waldoj “Shoes Georg is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted.”

@waldoj I want to meet the joker who bought twenty.

@waldoj there's a massive secondary market where people buy and trade shoes which has to be skewing this.

@waldoj Average, sure. There's sneakerheads and other folks who buy multiple pairs weekly. Most people don't.

@waldoj the average American doesn't live in a home big enough to contain 5 years of shoe purchases, apparently

@waldoj Spiders Georg situation

@tomw @waldoj each Spiders Georg is actually a spider and buys 4x as many shoes as Humans Georg

@waldoj @anildash I don't know about currently, but in the mid to late 90s import duties on a pair of shoes was around 30% (everything coming into the US has import duty rates). But, the loophole was single shoes (not paired) coming in had about a 5% duty rate. Some companies would have left shoes shipped to one port, right shoes to another port, bring them together and box them to be sold.

@waldoj @anildash Surely they mean a pair of shoes every seven years.

@waldoj Imelda "Georg" Marcos, who lives in cave & buys over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

@waldoj Yeah somebody is REALLY blowing the curve. That is not normal at all.

@waldoj

That would appear to be the average number of shoes bought, not the number of shoes bought by the average American (which is given by the median). I don't think the median figure is known (perhaps by household).

About 1,830 million pairs were sold in 2020. It's a lot,. and I imagine many were in fact quite cheap.

For some time now the average household income (the mean) and the income of the average household (the median) have diverged sharply. These are easily tracked.

@waldoj Wow. Now I want to see the power law distribution for shoe purchases. What are the median and mode? :-)

@waldoj This feels like hearing that the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is $30,000. Not buying it.

@waldoj this at first glance seems high, but considering it's an average doesn't seem implausible. It seems similar in situation to average number of books read per year. Factors that likely come into play are collectors, athletes, and children.

As an example, I haven't bought a shoe in a year. But when I did last buy shoes I ended up buying several at once. My wife is the same. Our children go through multiple shoes a year.

@waldoj i see mostly dudes replying that they buy 1 pair every 2 years. 🙄

i don’t say this often, but it’s apropos here: your privilege is really showing.

take a look at your female friends. professional women are expect to dress with matching shoes and outfits that keep up with ever changing trends.

and that doesn’t even touch on the shoes they buy for going out, working out, etc.

i’m sure most women buy 10+ pairs of shoes per year and balance the average with those of us who buy 1 or 2.

@waldoj sneakerhead Georg who is an outlier and should not have been counted

@waldoj I think it's like how the average American owns more than one gun. It's a handful of people who have a lot driving up the average while the median is a lot lower.

@waldoj Even including “specialised” shoes for various sports and activities I don’t buy this many!

@waldoj what shoe whale is out here skewing the average?

@waldoj @anildash they confused ownership with yearly purchase.

footwearnews.com/shoes/sneaker

The [2021 eBay] survey of about 2,000 adult participants found that the average woman living in the U.S. owns six pairs of sneakers, while the average man living in the U.S. owns seven pairs.

Footwear News · How Many Shoes Does the Average American Own? A Breakdown of Sneaker Collecting Habits by Gender, Profession, State and MoreBy Katie Dupere

@waldoj @anildash I don’t every year, but I probably do buy 4 pair per year on average. I have bought 4 pair this year, and 3 of them are high quality shoes that I anticipate I will wear for the next 15 years at least (I do have a bit of a shoe problem, granted). Oh plus those rubber boots. Yeah. On the other hand I do have some motorcycle boots that are 27 years old that I still do wear. 🤷‍♀️