And the Nike store in Manhattan. A friend of mine plays pro ball over in Italy and I hung out when he was in NYC about 2 weeks ago. He wanted some new sneakers, (Okay, he wwanted some new Air Jordans:rolleyes:) so we went to the Nike store in Manhattan.
Here’s the thing: my friend’s feet are 2 very different sizes. he wears an 12 1/2 on his left foot and a 10 on his right.
So, he tries on about 10 different pairs and finally decides on 2 pairs.
The Nike store charged him for 4 pairs.
Their rationalization was that since he was really only buying 1 shoe from each pair, that left Nike holding the other 2 shoes, therefore he should pay for 4 pairs.
Like Nike can’t afford this?
Michael Jordan has over 2000 pairs of Air Jordans from Nike that he never payed for and that doesn’t include the new pair he puts on before each and every game.
How does this lead back to Bean?
Well today, while singlepacking, I noticed someone bought a pair of shoes that were 2 different sizes.
No, it wasn’t my friend.:rolleyes:
Bean had charged the person for 2 pairs of shoes.
Like Bean can’t afford this?
I can sort of see the companies point, but come on.
I’m ready to bash Nike for lots of things, but this one doesn’t seem compelling. What are they supposed to do, wait until someone comes in who has a right foot that’s a size 12 1/2 and a left foot that’s a size 10?
Your friend and the person you ran into are freaks. I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Let me expain it this way. The store either buys or accounts for the shoes as pairs. Your friend is extremely odd in that he needs two wildly different sizes to fit his feet. That is not normal. He needs to buy two pairs to meet his needs. That is unfortunate for him but it is fair.
I used to work for a shoe company. You cannot buy a single shoe out of a pair even if one gets lost or stolen. That is simply not the way it works. The shoes are manufactured in pairs and all of the systems account for them in that way. By asking them to toss out two shoes, he is asking them to take a loss on a whole pair. That doesn’t seem right to me because it is his oddity, not theirs.
If I were a hunchback, I would not demand that the Ralph Lauren store to make special Polo shirts that accomodate my hump for free.
I still don’t understand why they charged him for 4 pairs, though. He only “used” two, that is, he could have just bought a whole pair of 10 shoes and a whole pair of 12 1/2 shoes and never told them he was only going to use half, and then they would only have charged him for 2. This sounds, to me, like the mistake of a clerk who was bad at math, but I dunno, maybe it is Nike’s corporate policy. If so, it is an extremely lucrative one.
One size 12 1/2 foot and one size 10 foot? Jesus. Does he have a club foot? A peg leg? Is he a pirate?
And how the hell is your friend playing pro ball in Italy with two such differently sized feet? Can he even run? Does he go in circles? And how tall is he anyway? I wear a size 15, and I’m not even tall by NBA standards.
[sub]I know I’m a bad person for making fun of someone’s physical deformities, but since he plays basketball, I figure it’s OK. I make fun of Shaq, too.[/sub]
Giraffe, he’s playing in Italy, not the NBA. He could be 6". I met a few pro players in Greece. Some of them couldn’t even play college ball here, so they went there.
I have also run across a reference or two to groups who deal with prosthetic devices and amputees. Since they frequently need only one shoe of a pair, I believe they arrange for swaps (where two people each buy two pair of shoes and then swap the shoes they can’t use). Our B-Ball player might want to see if he can find one of these groups and arrange a separate trade with two different people.
Good grief. Yes, you are wrong to semi-rant about this. Nike sells pairs of shoes, with each shoe the same size. They are under no obligation to do it differently, any more than I can march into the local 7-Eleven and demand to pay for only half a bottle of Heinekin, because I only plan to drink half.