Italy and France more expensive since 25% to 100%
With same quality of Italians or French, the big difference is on price and on the minimum quantities required.
The difference between, a high quality man’s formal shoe, made in Portugal or made in Italy and France, is more 25% for quantities over 100 pairs. But if you want small series less then 100 pairs/model, the difference is over 40%.
For a single fully costumized shoe, the difference is more than 100%, compared with the price charged by us (of course we are the most competitive in Europe
). You can purchase a single fully costumized shoe for the same price you can buy the same shoe but produced in serie.
Although Portugal has very good leather’s providers, any company is prepared to import raw materials from abroad, if for some reazon, this is the better option. With globalization, there isn’t any handicup to produce a product exactly with the same raw materials that a shoe produced in other country.
In our case, we are currently, producing shoes with leather importing from Sweden, because we find out there the exactly kind of leather that our customer wanted.
Here is a good article about this theme on Business of fashion