I good place to shop for your shoes whether you are out on the trail or at home is Zappos. They have free overnight shipping and free return shipping. You can order as many pairs of shoes as you want, try them on, and return them for free, if they don’t work out for you. I once ordered 5 pairs of shoes and returned all of them with no hassles. You need to be able to access the Internet and a printer to print the return labels.
Their phone number is 1-800-927-7671. They take orders 24/7 and they will ship, Fed-ex, UPS, or USPS.
I’m a size 15 so buying shoes online is the only way for me to go since just about all retailers don’t carry my size.
Zappos is good. So is ShoeBuy.com and OnlineShoes.com.
They all seem to operate the same way -free shipping and no sales tax.
What about supporting the independant retailers out there? Also how about the all the energy wasted mailing shoes? Here is an idea; walk into a shop try on several pair of shoes.
The nearest shoe store to me is at least 150 miles away. Once I went there trying to find NB 817 in my size–not one pair in the whole city. The nearest place that I maybe could get them would be 300 miles a way–a very long walk– and what would I wear while I walked to Seattle to find these shoes?
Shoes are really important to a long distance hiker. You won’t find as many different styles and sizes at a store. And being able to try them on at home for an extended period of time is also a plus.
When I’m on the trail there is no chance of finding my shoes in the little towns along the way.
The way people shop is changing. I feel no responsibility to support any retailers, online or other wise.
Do you think the shoe stores get their shoes from a cobbler working in the back room? They get them in the mail.
Come on you have to know the difference between a store receiving 20 pairs at one time in one shipement, versus your waste of shipping 1 pair then sending 1 pair back then sending another pair…just think about it. I think we have have a responsiblity to support independent businesses, not corporations, evil corporations.
Yeah, I could see how buying my shoes from a cobbler would be healthier, but some guy that makes his living buying stuff, marking it up and re-saleing it?
Save the retailers! I hate to think what life would be like without them. If there weren’t retailers to mark up all of our goods, we would have to buy our stuff wholesale or worse, straight from the person who made it
or even worse, we would have to make and grow our own stuff.
BigJ, when something gets shipped from an online vendor to my home, it’s not like it’s the only box traveling on the plane to get to my house. The planes are going to be making the trip anyways, so why not have the plane carry something I need. The mailman is going to be driving by my house every day irregardless of whether or not I have mail, so he may as well be running my errands for me. In fact I would rather see a big plane and a mail truck stuffed with boxes making deliveries than a bunch of people driving their cars around with one box in each. Which one is more efficient use of resources? It’s not so black and white. Being able to order stuff online has made it easier for me to drive less. Our family of 5 has only needed to have 1 car, and I would like to keep it that way.