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?

Thighboots2

It certainly does have an impact, manufacturers know that hose men who do buy womens shoes invariably go for fetish type footwear - there is a big market and no manufacturer is going to turn that down. From their point of view, there is a limited market for normal styles so they are not made in such great numbers or diversity. USA seems to have a greater range of sizes in normal footwear (as opposed to fetish) and the manufacturers there have realised that womens feet are getting bigger and are responding. The UK and Europe are behind in this trend.

You have to distinguish between footwear meant for normal wear and fetish footwear, then you will find your answers. Womens shoes 14-17 are as you say clearly for men, but listed as ladies, this is the stores cashing in on the fetish bandwaggon. A man shopping for a pair of stilettos only looks in the womens section because that is where they are expected to be. It would be a very brave move for Payless and Zappos to put their mens sized womens shoes in the mens section. They should, but they won't. As wearing a womans shoe is what most men find stimulating, if it were openly in the mens setion, it wouldn't be nearly so stimulating.

Payless shoes are marketed at women. They carry big lines because there really are lots of women with feet bigger that US10 who want to buy footwear that isnt from the mens racks. Who can blame them. Same for Zappos. However a customer is a customer regardless of gender.

Its marketing, otherwise we would be wearing heels quite openly and this board would be irrelevant.

Or have I missed the point?

Simon.

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Bubba136

I agree with Thighboots2. I will give you the benifit of the doubt, heelma, that Payless does target male high heel wearers. However, as Thighboots2 stated, you have to factor into the equation the fact that Payless stores are quite popular in most of the larger cities across the United State. And, these cities have large "ethnic" populations where Payless is quite popular. A significant number of the females in these communities are noticably larger (not obease , just larger in size) with feet that are larger and wider than the most popular sizes that are carried in other. Therefore, I would think that the apparent target for these larger sizes is these women and any male heel wearers are an "unintended" recipient of Payless stocking the "larger" sizes.

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heelma

Thanks for your feedback. I agree with the ethnical groups in the cities, however, from what I see, most immigrant women are shorter, rather than taller. Japanese and Chinese ladies are on the extreme scale, of course, but even Hispanics are mainly shorter than average. Or do you know of any city where there are noticeably more very tall Swedish women (for example)?

Bubba136

Try thinking of some of the imigrants from West African countries.

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Being mentally comfortable in your own mind is the key to wearing heels in public.

Dr. Shoe

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!

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Arctic

I know nothing about the shoe business but odds are good that it is like any other. In that case:

- the manufacturers often don't make any business decisions wrt style, sizes, price etc. They just manufacture.
- styles and sizes are decided by design houses or design departments. Green light is then given by some business managers who have access to money for marketing, distribution, production, etc.
- the business model is in essence very simple: you need to be able to sell a lot at low margins or a little at high margins
- in any business, going after an established market is the safer bet but margin pressure is high. The fetish market fits that profile. Being early with a new product is often good, as you can temporarily rake in high margins to recap your initial investment. That is why products can often drop significantly in price over time.
- in the fashion business, where demand is based on pereception and ambition, it is a very risky game to establish a new category (eg. men's hh shoes). Even at $£€300/pair, it is difficult to predict break even because forecasting the demand is next to impossible. Even us, who are probably the world's market experts on hh shoes, could not possibly come up with a style that would result into at least a few thousand pairs sold.
- the channel is more important than the product: anyone in the B2C business knows that having a great product means nothing if it isn't easy to sell. Hh shoes for men are NOT at all easy to sell. There are a thousand threads here on this board on "try them on in store???". If that is even a problem for THIS audience, what kind of issue do you have in general retail?
- All traditional retail works by supplying products for which there exists a proven demand, as having a product in inventory costs big money. There are important parameters like shelf and stock rotation, which all work against hh shoes for men. It is easy to prove that in the time it takes to sell one hh pair to men, you can at least sell 10 hh pairs to women. Or 50 pairs of regular shoes for that matter.

Summary: This board has, say, 10k users which buy perhaps 5 pairs of hh shoes per year, assuming the opprtunity is 100x larger, that is still only 5M pairs a year. That doesn't move the needle at all. I'm sure that more shoes are sold in Manhattan during one week. The currently established business ecosystem for shoes and fashion in general runs like clockwork, does not favor bold moves as the risk outweighs the potential benefit and hh for men will remain a marginal phenomenon to be served by speciality stores irl and on the internet. I say that unless external demand gets created by the popularization of the concept by a celebrity or so, our purchasing behavior does nothing at all to influence the *mainstream* shoe business.

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HHfanatic

Maybe the size is kept down to 10/11 on most of the design`s becouse of the look. Not all footwear look as good in size 14 as in size 6.

I find it doubtfull that mens use of female footware is raising the sizes.
It might be becouse of more women have "big foot" than before and whatever men is buying, is just a not calculated bonus.

Now I think of normal female footwear, not fetish footwear.

shrimper

In reference to the political correctness of Bubba136 and Dr. Shoe, I believe they were referring to African-American (Black) women having larger, wider feet. I do agree with the prevalence of wider feet in the Black community but the only women I have witnessed buying 12's or 13's in a Payless store were Anglos. In fact the first Payless store that I found carrying 13's on their racks was in a predominantly White suburb of a major city.
As the saying goes "All generalizations are inaccurate, including this one." Its my hope that we can be frank with one another without offending as we're speaking from our own perspectives on the world as we each know it.

Stilettoscot

Sorry, have to disagree with you here. I have a lot of extended family from Haiti (via Sierra Leon`), and lots of friends from Ghana and Ivory Coast. My Ex is 5' 8", and wears a size 7. Most of her family, and all of my friends I know of, have smallish to normal feet.
It's the big goofy white ladies I know with feet that dwarf mine.