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Originally Posted by heelma  What do you guys thinnk: I wonder if the demand by men buying heels has any impact on the decision of shoe manufacturers what shoes they will produce in larger sizes. Similarly, does men's demand impact also the selection of large size shoes that shoe sellers put into their store or onto their website?
Even more specifically, do you think that anyone from either the manufacturer or the seller reads this or similar forums and bases their decision on what we write here?
In this context, another thing I wonder about is why all shoe sellers, from Payless to online-only stores, list all those heels under "women's shoes", even if they offer size 14-17 of that model. It's kind of obvious that the only group of targeted customers for those sizes are males. Also, as we know, at Payless all shoes run quite large, so that a size 13 easily fits even my feet that otherwise like somewhere between 14 and 15 better. As Payless has quite a lot of size 13 shoes, even some wide width size 13 shoes, and even has some of them in their stores, you have to wonder how many men really buy those women's shoes in their store, don't you? |
The decision to stock sizes is usually retailer led, or it is with the major retailers such as Payless in the US and firms like Barratts in the UK. When they order the merchandise they specify the order for the sizes and then this will be divided up so that a carton will come with a mixture of sizes according to the ratio of sizes that have been ordered. The buyers are often extremely good at this and hit it just right so that out of thousands of pairs shifted in each store only one or two pairs of each size of style will stay long enough to make it to the sale. In essence, the manufacturersdecide the sizes that are going to be stocked not the manufacturers.
However, in answer to the question, I do believe that purchases by male customers do have some impact on the decision of sizes stocked though it is taking time, most stores only going up to 9 in the UK. This is an advance on the 90s though when many stores would stop at 7 in most styles and only offer low heels and flats up to 8. It started to change in about 95 when everyone went up to 8 and started to offer e few styles up to 9. Now most stores do some 9s and many do all styles in that size.
The main reason why they are listed as ladies' styles is because it would not currently occur to most people buying heels to look in the men's section. In addition, I think that many retailers kid themselves that there are actually women with size 13 feet!