With football and netball seasons looming, parents and players face a struggle to find footwear as a global supply chain crisis affects stocks nationwide.
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Intersports Wagga owner Marcus Chobdzynski said that the sports industry was told there would be a footwear shortage as early as July last year.
The mega factories that produce the boots, predominantly in Vietnam, closed down for months last year and stock is starting to run low.
As a result, Mr Chobdzynski has had to turn customers away.
"We'll probably only get 30 per cent of what we order," he said.
"Regularly, we would get monthly orders, but this season it's very infrequent, a lot of our suppliers are still sending stock we were supposed to get in September last year."
Mr Chobdzynski said that the shortages were not limited to footwear, but that had been the item hardest hit by the supply chain issues.
"All the factories that have closed are footwear specialists," he said.
In a normal season, Mr Chobdzynski would sell in excess of 1000 pairs of football boots and netball shoes, but sales will be heavily affected this season.
When he does get stock, they're sold just as quickly, but Mr Chobdzynski said that locals could still come in for that specific boot.
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"What we are aiming to do is find out what the customer is after, write their details down and as soon as we get any hits on that at all we let them know straight away," he said.
Kurt Burns, from Athlete's Foot, said supply issues mostly affected the mid-to-low price range in footwear.
"The expensive boots are made in the same warehouse ... and your cheaper ones are made in a different warehouse where they're not working," he said.
"Some people come in looking for footy boots and they look up and we've got $250, $270 ones on the wall.
"And you go up the road and most of the Nike are $300-plus, and they do all make a lower grade boot, but it just [hasn't made it here]."
These high prices might become an impediment for some families who want to get their children into sports.
"Parents are finding it hard to find boots to fit their kids," Wagga Brothers Juniors president Ted Wright said.
"The boots they have to buy are in excess of $200 ... that's a big expense.
"We want to have kids involved in sport, but then you have issues like this that definitely makes it hard for them to participate.
"Any sport's not cheap to get into, and then when you talk uniform.
"Then if you get your hand forced to buy more expensive boots because supply is not there, that would be a factor for any parent."
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