Technobabble

Shopping for Shoes

Posted by on Feb 1, 2006 | 4 Comments

Have you ever bought a pair of shoes online? Barry Diller, the Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp, is betting that you will, and he’s betting big …

On Monday, the company announced that it will acquire Boston-based Shoebuy.com, “a leading internet retailer of footwear and related apparel.” While you might not be familiar with IAC, one or more of the conglomerate’s popular brands should ring a bell. Shoebuy joins IAC’s familiar names, which include Ask Jeeves; Citysearch, Evite, HSN, LendingTree, Match.com, Ticketmaster, and RealEstate.com. The acquisition should allow Shoebuy to go toe-to-toe with Zappos, “The Web’s Most Popular Shoe Store.” (Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.)

Online shoe sales are big by all accounts. It seems that folks love to browse and buy shoes online, with a great many looking for sport-specific shoes. Golf, basketball, bowling, tennis, and running shoes live near the top of the most-searched list. And lets not forget those cleated sports shoes, for baseball, football, and soccer. (Soccer players on the other side of the pond don’t refer to their shoes as shoes, they call them “boots” … and of course, they call it football over there, not soccer). But no matter the sport, players and fans can’t get enough of those popular brands like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, New Balance, and Merrell.

Malcolm Gladwell’s classic Tipping Point begins with a tale of the rebirth of the Hush Puppies brand in the mid- to late-90s. Gladwell doesn’t mention the Internet’s role in spreading the brand’s popularity, but the surge in sales just happened to happen in the same slice of time when the Internet really started rocking.

I gotta get with it. I’m not just a geek that loves sheds, I’m a throwback when it comes to buying shoes. In all my years of living online, I’ve never bought a pair of shoes over the Internet. I’m a “gotta try ‘em on” kinda guy. I just picked up a fantastic pair of Merrells last week with a holiday gift certificate that was burning a hole in my pocket. Alas, I bought them in the dirt world, not online …

  • Mark Furlong

    I’ve bought many pairs of shoes on line. All were New Balance, from their website and from LL Bean. I know exactly what size fits me with New Balance products and, so far, they have been 100% consistent in their sizing, whether walking shoes, sandals or “other.”

    Can’t say I would buy a brand I didn’t know on line…I hate shipping stuff back.

  • Brian Humbrecht

    Chris, I have bought shoes online for many years.
    First, from experience, I only buy name brands that I recognize.
    Second, I use BOTs to find the best price for a specific shoe make, style & color that I won’t to purchase. My most recent purchases were artic trail boots for snow hiking this past winter [Xmas Gift] & Leather Thongs to wear to/from my new Spa. Clarks is usually my top choice, as a dependable, well made, long lasting & very comfortable shoe. I also have some Merril slip-ons, insulated model for winter & uninsulated for summer. Third, if buying online you want the source to tell you if the make & model differ from stds. [e.g. buy a size larger than you normally would, etc.].

  • Cindy Gilliland

    My 19 year-old son is crazy for unusual athletic shoes… he doesn’t want to see his shoes on anyone else’s feet. We have bought several pairs from the Converse website and been pleased. But, because of the following story, we will be Zappos.com customers for life.

    Near the end of last summer he used his lawn-mowing money to buy 2 pairs of shoes from Zappos. Each pair was in the $80-100 range… a huge purchase for a broke teenager, but shoes are his only extravagance. He took his brand new shoes to college orientation, and proceeded to leave one shoe behind in the dorm room, where it was promptly trashed by the cleaning crew. I sent an e-mail to the company explaining the situation, and asking if he might be able to buy another pair of the shoes for a discount (realizing they surely could not sell just one shoe). Imagine our shock when they overnighted a free replacement pair of shoes! They promote themselves as “a customer service company that happens to sell shoes.” Of course, it was money well spent on their part, as I can’t count how many friends I’ve told this story to in the past year. Also, the fact that they pay for return shipping if you get a pair of shoes that don’t work makes any purchase risk-free. I just LOVE this company.

  • Jon T.

    I’ve bought from shoebuy for several years. Excellent service, great prices. The trick is to use a deal website (I use dealnews dot com) to let you know when shoebuy is offering 20%-off coupons.