A Malawian ‘glamourous’ shop is selling Nike footwear at about 170 thousand Malawi Kwacha a pair, dwarfing salaries that a graduate intern on government payroll receives.
The shop, Glamtique Galore, tweeted the shoes yesterday and immediately took over Twitter Malawi.
The country’s minimum wage is set at K50 thousand. Government interns with university degrees will have to wait for more than 3 months with a meagre K80,000 monthly salary to afford one pair – if they can manage to save without eating or paying rentals.
In 2014, South African shop Mr Price closed its doors in Malawi because it was not making profits. Most people avoided the shop because its stock was very expensive for an average Malawian who opted for cheaper Chinese counterfeit products.
But Glamtique Galore is selling Nike Shox BB4 at K167,500. On the official Nike Shop (US Store), the pair is currently selling at a reduced price of about K60,000 from K120 thousand.
The Jordan Air Cadence footware at Glamtique is pegged at K117,500 whereas at the shop’s official online store for South Africa, a pair sells at K75,000.
With just K88 thousand, you can own a pair of Nike Renew Elevate at Glamtique and a K500 banknote change.
Malawi24 could not verify the authenticity of the shoes as the country has seen a boom of Chinese made counterfeit products on local markets. But if you want to place an order, head to their Twitter account.
Twitter Malawi gave a mixed reaction as the tweets below show.
Gents? pic.twitter.com/lyxu0WyqvO
— Glamtique_galore (@GlamtiqueG) August 19, 2020
abale zoona izi?? m'bwa kudula uku?? kuposa salary .
kapena ukavala sukuva njala?? https://t.co/LlEJ0GdWtB— RODGERS FANUEL MWALE (@FanuelRodgers) August 20, 2020
https://twitter.com/VendorWankulu/status/1296172915667468289
Nsapato yoti utha kumayendamo popita kunsika kapena kuntchito kunyamulanso anthu amene wawapeza munjira https://t.co/JMNIbv8V34
— The North (@mwanjiiii) August 19, 2020
Nde ublake akuvule nsapato smh https://t.co/W5SZOb6fCY
— Precious Mbuna (@IamCristophen) August 19, 2020
My 2 months salary gents!! 😭😭😭I need a better job ndithu. https://t.co/5dd1fq6ogZ pic.twitter.com/C1cwAb2HuP
— 𝕰𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖓 𝕾𝖎𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖎 (@Eston_One) August 19, 2020
https://twitter.com/Diingiswayo_/status/1296003447125417984
These shoes are heavily overpriced. I buy the same shoes in Nike factory shop in Woodmead, South Africa, and they cost half the amount indicated here. Nike Shox BB4 (the first 2) cost about R1,000.00 which is MK45,000.00 at the current exchange rate. How can they justify a price of more than R3,700.00? Its pure theft kubera anthu osazitsata. In UK my brother told me that the Shox cost about 70 pounds!