I follow your rule seren nos, but do disagree on one point: they can be much more expensive then other stores, I found my Asics Foundation 8s for £30 from one store, they are still being sold for £80 in Runners Need where I got fitted. I had two pairs for a while on rotation!
I worry about discount sites, I heard somewhere and had further people back up the information given, that certain brands, Asics being one (Nike is another, there are countless more) can sell off their designs and instructions on building/creating their products to anyone (I got the picture it was mass manufactuers rather then the average joe bloggs!) who can then make up the shoes and sell them on but still label them as branded yet make a profit on them. Hence the same shoe being made from various cheap-labour Countries and at several different prices: they don't specify certain brands of fabric, so its open to bad quality fibers and plastic rubbers, it worried me further when I hear people such as the OP here stating they have discovered a hole in their shoe!
I don't know if all products from a specific store would do this or if they'd stick to only certain items but you do gotta wonder why the prices are so different, I can understand a cut of 30% but sometimes things are just too cheap for me to understand.
I don't know the names of all the stores which buy into this but know TK Maxx, Sports Direct and M&M direct have all been named in past chats about this.
