Our members with children’s shops are reporting a great ‘back-to-school’ with many shops 25% up on last year. Bearing in mind the dreadful summer we have had, it is great news. Is the message finally getting across that there is no substitute for having your children’s feet looked after professionally? Probably not, it is more likely to be staff getting more forceful and better at making a sale in difficult trading conditions.
It would be very interesting to know how many people actually had the nerve to go into shops to check their child’s measurements and then walk out to buy cheaper brands elsewhere. Shops have reported a massive increase over the past 3 years of people doing precisely that, some parents even having the cheek to stand instore whilst checking the internet on their mobile phones for a particular style! Subsequently we supplied our members with ‘polite and warning show-cards’ to display instore to inform the public that they are in a retail outlet and not simply a showroom.
Things can only get worse as it is now possible for the public to buy shoe gauges on the web. Our organisation will never sell gauges to anyone without the necessary training in their peculiarities as gauges are all different, a gauge is merely a guide, simply a starting point in the fitting process. But are the public aware of this? Of course they are not, how could they possibly know the dangers of self-fitting and how important it is to measure and fit a child properly? They won’t realise the damage they could be doing to their child’s physiology until it is too late.
When a child needs glasses they go to an optician and it is only when they are adults they may choose to risk off-the-shelf cheap specs, but as footwear is seen as an accessory rather than the most important thing a child wears, the same cannot be said of footwear. With the sale of foot gauges the public think they can do it for themselves. Parents who would not dream of smacking their child, or missing a trip to the doctor or dentist, will quite happily buy a gauge and then trot off to a high street store to merely check their measurement and look at the choice of shoes, then click a button on their computer for ‘Jacintha and Bartrum’s’ footwear to be delivered, or buy the cheapest they can find. They think the size on the gauge is the size that will fit their child regardless of brand, style, materials, country of origin etc. The chances are it is only when the child becomes bored with the shoes or they are simply falling apart, that the parent will get their gauge out to re-measure.
Shops are reporting seeing children wearing shoes up to 2 sizes too small and parents complaining their children’s feet hurt!!!! If gauges were not so easily accessible it would definitely increase the footfall back into footwear outlets and parents would benefit from experienced people assessing their children’s feet and foot health, giving them much needed advice and a reminder to come back for more in a few months time! Selling gauges literally reduces the need for parents to buy responsibly.
This month there will be hundreds of children unhappily dragging their new shoes round the playground where parents have allowed too much growing room. Many children will be hobbling due to their low ankle bone rubbing on the shoe collar, or their toes hitting on the upper. Those that chose a slip on style that had to be fitted ‘near’ (or more likely tight to keep them on) are likely to have their toes cramped in a month or two’s time when they have had a growth spurt, but the parents wont be thinking of buying another pair so quickly, so the gauges will not be used as a guide, simply a means to an end and most likely to buy cheaply made, unsuitable footwear. Year’s ago it was often the ‘poor’ kids who suffered this fate, kids wore ‘hand-me-downs’ from their siblings; but nowadays it is just as likely to be the offspring of the affluent middle-classes who think they know best and would sooner buy a very good bottle of wine at the weekend to impress their friends, or the latest computer game to keep their children happy.
We bang on about how many Chiropodists there are now in the UK (over 11,000) and it is common-sense to realise why there is such a need, but how many shops reading this actually care about the feet they are serving? How many really know about the footwear they are selling? How many new shops will spend a fortune on local advertising to establish themselves when they actually have nothing unique to offer to compete with the ‘big boys’? Many new shops are building a business on shaky foundations and would sooner buy another couple of lines of shoes that may not sell, than qualify on one of our courses enabling them to buy more sensibly and fit what they have on the shelf confidently. Our members can say with pride that they ‘sell shoes that won’t come back to people who will’. Ignorance is not bliss, it is blisters, but it is never too late to learn how to do the job properly.
Laura West, The Society of Shoe Fitters www.shoefitters-uk.org Email: secretary@shoefitters-uk.org Tel. 01953-851171
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