Shoe companies are not charitable institutions. They are for profit
companies with bills to pay and if they are a publicly traded company
such as Nike or Reebok they have shareholders to satisfy. Even if
you are not intimately acquainted with the Bible you may be familiar
with the Pontius Pilate quote "What is truth?" that appears in John
18:38. Books have been written about truth, what it is, what it is not,
whether it is absolute or relative and what constitutes a lie.
So what are shoe companies saying and, more importantly how can you
as a consumer protect yourself? According to one statistic there are
more lawyers in Seattle than in the entire country of Japan.
Manufacturing companies are careful about what claims they make about
their products because a lawsuit costs them time, money and their
reputation which can have a detrimental effect on future sales.
The next time you go to the gym sit and watch the people circling the
track. At the YMCA I frequent there is a decent mix of people in
various stages of physical fitness. You can find morbidly obese people,
people that I would call anorexic and some in between types who are
neither fat nor thin. Considering that all of us have been using our
bodies since birth it is a shame that so few people understand their
bodies and use them correctly.
Good shoes will protect your feet, support them and provide
adornment. Smart shoppers will recognize that if you care for an item
properly it will perform better, malfunction less frequently and cost
less to repair. While there are exceptions to every rule generally
speaking the cars that are in for regular maintenance and have good
tires that are rotated routinely are less likely to break down than cars
whose owners drive them past the recommended limits for oil changes and
tire rotations.
Just as tires on a car wear down, tread on shoes wears down. If you
put the wrong sized tire on your vehicle it will perform less optimally
than tires that fit correctly. Hopefully you're thinking that almost no
one puts the wrong sized tires on their car. Tires are standardized, it
is relatively easy to determine which ones fit your car and which ones
will be either too large or not quite big enough.
Shoes, while serving some of the same functions as tires are not so
easy to size correctly. Various studies have tried to determine how many
people are wearing the wrong size shoes. Humans are irregular, most of
us have a foot that is slightly wider or shorter than the other. People
have leg length discrepancies, one foot may have a bunion the other
lacks, my point is sizing feet is not difficult, getting people into
shoes that are the right size is a challenge trained professionals face
daily.
Experts can tell when shoes do not fit. Most of the people who work
at shoe stores are sales people. Not podiatrists, not pedorthists, not
certified fitters, they are sales people. They are trained to sell the
maximum amount of products to the maximum amount of people. Pushing
products is how they are compensated and you can make a decent living if
you are friendly, personable and able to refrain from physically
harming the people attached to the feet you want to help.
Even when you know what you are talking about you will have the
bargain shoppers who buy the wrong shoes because they are cheaper than
the shoes they need. You will run into the fitness expert that thinks
they know more than you because they work out and the people who would
rather have something cute that they think looks good than a pair of
shoes that meets the support needs of their feet.
Caveat emptor is hardly a new concept. Shoe companies are trying to
sell you shoes just as car manufacturers are trying to sell cars and
cosmetic companies are trying to sell the idea that their overpriced
products are something people actually need. Are companies like Revlon
and Loreal lying to you when they airbrush photos of their models?
Are shoe companies telling the truth about their shoes that claim to
tone and firm and if their claims are false, are you as a consumer smart
enough to recognize a sales pitch for what it is and walk away from a
clever marketing scheme?
The company I work for has a guaranteed return policy. If you buy any
of our products you can send them back at any time for any reason
within six months for full credit. If you wear a pair of our sandals for
five and a half months, ship them back to us and we receive them before
six months have passed we will issue a credit for the full purchase
price regardless of the reason you have returned our merchandise.
As a consumer you need to educate yourself. You need to know your
body and you need to understand and listen to it. People have a tendency
to overthink shoes. Today my daughter tried on three pairs of sandals. The first pair she wanted so she told me they felt
great. The second and third pairs actually fit but she did not like the
color scheme on the second pair so she told me that they felt terrible.
The third pair fit and I didn't have to ask her anything because she
ran off with them on her feet. She wanted to wear her shoes out of the
store, she did not want to take them off when it was time to pay for
them and if your shoes do not immediately feel good they probably are
not the shoes for you. The best shoe fitter, the podiatrist with the
most education and the pedorthist with years of experience are all
humans. They are going to make mistakes however hopefully no one is
going to lie to you.
Shoe companies employ sales people to sell their shoes. If you are
unwilling to listen to a professional who measures your feet, walk out
of that shoe store because a professional depends on your feedback and
if you don't trust them to measure your foot they can't trust you to
give them accurate feedback on what a shoe feels like beneath your foot.
People enter stores believing that they will be ripped off. They talk
on their cell phones, disparage your products and complain about all
sorts of things while you're working and they are shopping. Employees
still owe them good service and I've been on all three sides of the shoe
sales triangle. Currently I work for a manufacturer, previously I was employed at a retail shoe store and I've been purchasing shoes since I
was a teenager.
Sometimes it is the sales person or fitter who is to blame for a poor
fit. People who are busy, who lack the knowledge, expertise, and
training necessary to identify a good fit are not all evil and intent on
ruining your feet. Often times people are their own worst enemies
because instead of shopping for shoes from the inside out they shop from
the outside in which is understandable yet regrettable.
The human body is a very complex machine. The majority of people I
see every day have not mastered the deceptively complicated art of
walking. Their shoes are cheap, insignificant, poorly made and of
inferior design. Good footwear is out there however many people do not
value their bodies or understand that you put a lot of miles on your
feet and just like lower quality tires will get you from point A to
point B your shocks and struts may suffer as a result.
Now I realize I haven't touched running shoes, specialty shoes or
custom orthotics that fit into shoes but you have to crawl before you
can walk and if you can't get people into the right size shoes there is
no point in wasting your time or theirs identifying what their support
needs are or what type of running shoe if any would benefit them.
If you went behind the scenes in a restaurant you would find out what
people really do to your food. I have witnessed shoe store employees
lying to their customers and stretching the truth. Companies that
manufacture shoes can be accused of false advertizing, some of them have
lied to the general public however my guess is you'll have a hard time
proving that in a court of law even if their shoes severely injure you.
Good shoes feel good. So few people know what a properly fitted shoe
feels like that a pair which offers a correct level of support and a
good fit feels wrong to them. They think they are being lied to when you
explain how much space should be beyond their longest toe. They don't
believe scans of their feet and doubt their own bodies when you can see
their shoulders straightening and their gait returning to normal.
There are few guarantees in life. Shoes are typically not guaranteed
and it is too bad that people do not take the time to educate themselves
on what type of foot they have and what type of shoe and support would
work best for their foot. You can be mad that you are paying too much
for shoes you buy off the shelf, you can be disgusted at what passes for
footwear in chains and franchises or you can start educating yourself
so you know when someone is lying and someone else is telling you the
truth because they know that an educated customer will come back again
and refer people to you.
Feet can be divided up into three categories, either you have a high,
a low or a medium arch. Your foot can be consistently measured and if
you go to two places and get two different measurements know that your
foot size can change throughout the day and can be up to a size larger
after athletic activities.
Many of the people I know have a closet full of shoes that fail to
meet their footwear needs. Feet are the foundation of your body. Roughly
twenty-five percent of your bones lie beneath your ankle, almost every
joint you have depends on proper foot alignment and there are more than
three hundred different diagnoses that a healthcare professional can
make based on an assessment of your feet.
Expecting shoe companies to have more integrity than other
manufacturing companies is idealistic. It would be nice if you could
believe everyone you spoke with however since they are your feet you are
charged with their care, maintenance and health. Hopefully this has
shed a little light on what it is like to be inside the shoe profession.
I'm not here to bash any brands nor will I
recommend any unless I can see the foot I'm working with which is what
people should be doing when recommending footwear.
Liars can figure and figures can lie. If something sounds too good to be
true it probably is however shoes can never feel too good. They should
never hurt, shoes should not give you blisters and you should understand
what the shoe was designed to do before you purchase a pair of shoes
that you think will do something the manufacturer never intended.
No one brand of shoes is going to work for every person so be wary
about recommending footwear to your friends and family based on your
personal experience. Recognize that companies are only as good as the
people running them, you as an end user are ultimately responsible for
your footwear situation.
If you believe that a company is lying to you take it up with them
and see what their response is. Blanket statements are not as effective
as specific ones. Part of my job entails responding to emails the
company I work for receives so I've seen claims that our footwear is
poorly made, doesn't last, injured someone or was in some way defective.
Good shoe companies will always take back defective merchandise.
Producing a product that needs approval from the Federal government
requires you to have outside certification that your product does what
it says it is going to at a minimum. There are provisions in place for
people who were deceived, misinformed and hotlines to report abuses of
companies so the government can follow up on these claims.
Not every company will fully disclose the truth about their products.
Drug companies have sold products that killed people. Surgeons have
operated on the wrong body parts, you have probably made a mistake or
two in your lifetime. Accusing someone of lying is serious. Concerns
that involve product safety should be taken to the corporation
responsible for the inaccurate claims so future injuries can be prevented.