Who buys shoes in a store?
Going to the sports stores to buy “tenny runners” today is depressing. You can get white, maybe black or SUPER BRIGHT NEON MULTICOLOR MARDI GRAS shoes.
And if by some fluke there’s a nice color one, they don’t have it in my size.
Online I can get dark/navy blue shoes in my size. No neon.
Oh, god. Nope
Not gonna happen. Not really into bowling though. There are many, many things I won’t do in public because of my phobias. Public restrooms give me panic attacks.
I work on this problem everyday, pushing my comfort level back. At the moment I have seemingly taken a few steps backwards. I went to an Elementary school this past week(small win). I normally avoid those places like they carry the plague ( maybe just viruses) I’m working hard on that thing because my oldest granddaughter starts kindergarten, this year. And I want to go to her events. Wish me luck.
I kept trying to buy shoes in stores, but I may have finally given it up. The last time I went through, no store had what I wanted in my size (a common size, too). I don’t buy that much online, but in this case the advantage was selection, price, and convenience.
As far as Payless goes, they seem to ahve been running downhill for a decade, so I’m not very surprised.
I stopped buying shoes from local stores many years ago mainly because they hardly ever have my size. I shop online pretty much exclusively now.
When you don’t wear a standard size shoe, you buy shoes online. In the last 20 years, I bought 2 pairs of shoes in stores. One was a closeout sale of a small store, and I found the best shoes I’ve ever owned. I’ve never seen that brand in a store since. The other was a clearance pair of men’s water shoes that I can use in the pool.
Other than that, if I do go to a store, they have to special-order my size. Once I know a size and style, I can order them online.
I wear a women’s size 9 EEEE. I need to have orthotics in every brand but Klogs. Stores don’t stock them.
The only shoes I wear are Cross-Trekkers men’s Double Strap. Size 13W. I will need to find a way to make contact with the manufacturer, so I can continue to obtain them.
^ This is me.
Apparently, brick-and-mortar stores decided at some point that women don’t have feet wider than a “C” - I’m an EE. When the brick-and-mortar stores stopped stocking anything more than “standard” sizes I no longer had a choice, I had to start shopping on line. It’s not that I abandoned them, they abandoned me.
For work shoes, I know exactly what brand, size, and model works for me. When I need to, I just order a new pair. Otherwise, I’m living in my 30+ year old Birkenstocks and a few pairs of “nice” shoes that I have kept in usable condition over the years, in no small part because I seldom need to use them.
The prices went up as quality went down…all their sneakers were held together by the flap over the toes …once that started to come off the shoe it was like wearing a flip flop because the sole would separate from the shoe
After the 3rd pair in a year did that I just took the pairs hanging off the rack at Walmart…
Have you tried Amazon or Zappos?
Very sad. My own shoes I don’t buy there, but we buy for our kids there, and it’s possibly the most economic was of shoe-buying for a family. Living in New York, we have no Wal-Mart, and K-Mart died a few months back, so I guess Target will have to be our new shoe place. It’ll get quite expensive.
Oh come on now OP, it’s not like Payless was the go to place for shoes and now your only alternative is JC Penneys. The physical retail locations for shoe shopping are literally endless.
Kohls
Famous Footwear
DSW
Thousands of shops by brand stores in malls and outlet malls (Nike, Sketchers, Adidas, Puma, Merrel)
Macys
Finish Line
Foot Locker
Target
Nordstrom Outlet
Ross
TJ Maxx
Marshalls
Dicks Sporting Goods
And on and on and on and on…
IMHO, the whole panic over the decline of brick and mortar retail is overblown. As it is I still can’t find a decent parking space at any type of shopping center and the checkout lines are still slow.
I haven’t bought anything from Payless since I was a kid. I looked in one last year and it all seemed like cheap crap. I get pretty much everything from DSW.
Please God, don’t let Alamo’s in Andersonville close…Please God, don’t let Alamo’s in Andersonville close…
Terry Pratchett: “But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
I was thinking of this exact same quote, in fact.
Nah, not gonna happen anytime soon. They actually have decent service, quality merchandise, and a well-established niche in the area. Totally different customer base than Payless, that’s for sure.
When our kids were small there was a Payless a couple of blocks from the house where we bought all their shoes. When their feet got big enough to buy from DSW we started buying them there (it happened pretty early for both of them). DSW has better quality shoes and aren’t any more expensive than Payless.
I buy only two shoe brands. Merrell and Mephisto. I always know exactly how their shoes are going to fit me, and I know I’ll always be able to find a style I like online. So I only buy shoes online.
I hate shoe-shopping at brick-and-mortar stores.
I thought they went out of business years ago. Shows what I know.
(Word to the wise: do NOT go to Shoe Carnival. I learned this the hard way. :mad: Got three pairs of really cute boots for a really great price, and they all ended up falling apart in like, three months.)
Oh? That’s why they exist? I don’t shop online, either, and I’ve learned to like DSW because I can find and stockpile 12W to 14 (whatever happens to fit). And they have plain, boring white trainers. I can’t recognize shoes’ model years, FWIW.
None of them specialize in the paper and cardboard disposable shoes that Payless does, though. I grew up on Payless, and it would have been nice to take my daughter there for disposable shoes. I’m not sure where to look now.