You’ve probably heard about this before. You may or may-not be personally affected by this – but even if you aren’t, you may have seen a post shared on social-media by someone who is so affected, or by a friend of such a person. However, most articles you see written on this subject approach it from an advice-giving point-of-view – and the few that don’t tend to approach it from more of a venting point of view. And while articles that treat it in such manner do fill a true need, it’s about time someone also write about this treating it as the social issue that it also is.
What am I referring to? I am referring to the difficulties that women with large feet face in the effort to find nice shoes – especially (but not exclusively) those of us who have no choice but to try and do so on a budget.
When I first spoke to my mom about trying to call attention to this issue as the Industry Rudeness that it is, she explained to me that when someone has a business, they’re not going to invest money in something that enough people aren’t going to buy. But while this explanation might seem perfectly reasonable (and even have a kernel of truth to it) the reality is that the difficulties presented to women of such foot-sizes go way beyond what that basic business reality necessitates.
While it is true that business can’t afford to have a full selection of shoe-styles available for a niche-market that does not have as much collective buying-power as women with a more typical foot-size, there is much that the industry could do to make the experience of shopping for whatever plus-size shoes they do produce into a much more pleasant shopping experience than it currently is. Also, while there may indeed be somewhat less demand for plus-sized women’s shoes than there are for, say, size-9 women’s shoes – it seems that the reduction in supply way exceeds the reduction in demand.
I’ll start by discussing what the industry could do to improve the experience for large-footed women as we shop for whatever shoes do exist in our size. I’m not sure how much could be done in brick-and-mortar stores. However, in online stores, they could start by providing better search-refinement tools. I’ve been given a painful number of links to stores that supposedly sell women’s shoes up to size 14, or even 15 — but first, you have to find them, and they don’t make it easy. Many of them don’t even give you the option to restrict what they show by shoe-size. They expect me to just check every style I find remotely appealing in hopes that eventually I find the one that is available in my size. Doing this can be tedious no matter what you are shopping for. However for many women deprived, on account of their foot-size, of nice, cute shoes – this can be downright depressing.
Also – even if the site does give you the option to restrict your browsing by size – once you enter all the other criteria of what you’re looking for (such as specifying whether you’re looking for sandals, boots, or dress-shoes – or specifying your heel-size — or even being specific that you are looking for women’s shoes) these search engines tend to take a “two out of three ain’t bad” attitude. This results in my search yielding tons of results that serve no purpose other than to frustrate me. If I have a set of criteria that I need out of my shoes – then a store that values customer satisfaction should not even waste my time with a result that only meets nine out of ten criteria. Otherwise, I find results that range from the mild annoyance of being a shoe that has no semblance of the kind of shoe that I am looking for – to a shoe that so much matches what I’m looking for that it makes my mouth water – only to have my spirits crushed when I open that shoe’s description page and find that it is only available up to size 11-and-a-half. (My shoe-size is 13-wide.)
The people who design these search engines need to start to realize that there are certain criteria for a shoe-shopper which, no matter how many of those criteria are specified, it is downright discourteous to list in the results anything that doesn’t match 100% of those criteria. And a shoe that isn’t available in my size, no matter how many of my other search-criteria it meets, will not fit on my feet. If designing the search engine in a manner that respects this means that it will not yield any results – then leaving the site empty-handed without being taunted by stuff I can’t wear will still be a more pleasant shopping experience than being shown one cute pair of shoes after another that I am excluded from.
Now – it may be true that some criteria in my search for shoes I might be flexible on – but there are certain criteria which are non-negotiable, and can be identified as such by basic common-sense that can be easily coded into the programming of a store’s search-engine. Shoe-size is one of them – and so is the question of whether someone is looking for men’s shoes or women’s shoes. And there are other criteria that are also basic enough that one could easily write the search-engine to allow the shopper to specify whether or not they are flexible – such as what style of shoes one is looking for.
So in short – even if supply-and-demand inevitably result in a reduced selection of shoes for women with larger feet, there is no excuse for hiding the needle of proper-fitting shoes in a haystack of shoes that don’t fit.
The other unpleasant aspect of shoe-shopping for women with large feet is something that really poisons anyone’s online shoe-shopping experience – but since we women with larger feet are more likely to be forced to shop online for shoes, this affects us disproportionately. This is the tendency of many shoe manufacturers to have an excessively lenient interpretation of what shoe-sizes mean. This ridiculous practice doesn’t really help anyone who is shopping for shoes – but for those who have the privilege of being able to find shoes their size in brick-and-mortar stores, the annoyance that this Industry Rudeness causes is relatively minor. If the shoe that, according to it’s size-label should fit doesn’t, then all you need to do is put it back on the racks and (unless you’re on the cusp of what shoe-sizes are available in stores) just pick up the next size of that shoe and try it on.
However, if you are shopping online for shoes (which large-footed women often have no alternative but to do so) it’s not so simple. The option of “try before you buy” just doesn’t exist for us. We don’t get to try the shoes on until after it is shipped to us – which means that if it doesn’t fit, our only recourse is to send it back. Doing this is always a hassle that those who can find shoes their size in brick-and-mortar stores can’t identify with – and depending on the store’s return policy, it can be even more of an issue. It is time that the industry stop doing this. I should never have to send a shoe back to the store because the manufacturer has a loose interpretation of what women’s shoe-size 13-wide means.
If these Industry Rudenesses are corrected, that will already make the process of shoe-shopping for large-footed women much more pleasant, even if the selection of shoes available for a particular foot-size remains unchanged. However, the reality is that even though the market-share of large-footed women looking for shoes may be smaller than the market-share of regular-size-footed women doing the same, the selection of shoes available for large-footed women is even less than what that market reality in itself should dictate. The reasons for this may be difficult for a market-outsider such as myself to understand — but I suspect that part of this is due to the fact that the portion of the large-footed women’s market that these shoe-stores see reflected in sales is what is left after many large-footed women throw their hands up in frustration from being unable to find shoes the right size – walking away, often crestfallen, resigned to having to make-do with less-attractive shoes than their small-footed peers.
In short – while it is true that the reality of large-footed women being so few and far-between must inevitably make the experience of shopping for shoes somewhat more difficult – there is no excuse for it being as difficult as it currently is.
