Letter to Nordstroms

[genebujold]

You do a better job than most retailers with respect to offering women's shoes/boots/sandals in larger sizes.

Nevertheless, I've noticed that most of your size 13 selections for women's high-heels shoes, sandals, and boots remain available for just a few days until stock is sold out, while your size 8 selections for the same models remain available for months, and in a couple of cases, more than a year.

Why haven't you communicated to your manufacturers that the reason the larger sizes sell out so quickly is because the demand is there???

Do you have any way of tracking demand after you sell out of the sizes? Consider using your search engine! Notice how many times people search on "women-boots-high heel-size 13" with the few (or today, zero) offerings as compared to the same search and wide variety of offerings for size 8.

Provided they're offering it in a larger size, why can't you place larger orders for those sizes to ensure that all larger size wearers (and there are tens of thousands of us) have similar access to the offerings?

As a major retailer, why can't you mandate selection availability based on statistics, rather than some "wet finger in the wind" method which always turns up an average 1-week available for size 13 heels compared to an average 13-week availability for size 8 heels in the same style?

Don't snow me - I'm a statistician!

Again, the MARKET is there - why can't you and the manufacturers figure out how to appropriately supply it???

Reducing inventory holding costs is only half of the picture. The other half is ensuring you have the sizes available when people come looking.

HINT - THOSE OF US WHO WEAR LARGER SIZES AREN'T INTERESTED IN FLATS!!!

Gene' Bujold

[JeffB]

A very good letter which got right to the point and brought up lots to talk about I think. The problem with the retail market is that for the longest time, they labored under the 1950's mindset that women rarely exceeded a "standard" height of five-foot-seven and a size of seven or eight for shoes. Even though it's been officially documented that girls and women were growing ever taller, clothing manufacturers steadfastly refused to break their mindset. A long time ago, I use to date a tall girl (6-1) and she was perpetually frustrated at not finding clothes and shoes in her size. Fair or not, retailers have to concern themselves with the bottom line, and that says that a market for larger sized shoes just isn't large enough to warrant having a sizeable selection of sizes above say, eleven. Not that I'm defending retailers, but they have to cater to the market that'll rake in the most money, and that's to sizes UNDER eleven. Oh, sure, there will continue to be niche markets for larger sizes, but in the mainstream, smaller sizes continue to rule.

[Dr. Shoe]

I have often had the same conversation with managers of shoe shops which go something like this: Do you have this size in a 9[uK]? No sorry. Why not? There's no demand for them. How do you know? Well, we never sell any. Do you stock them in that size? No. Do you think that that explains why you never sell any? Er,...

[azraelle]

I've also noted that, at least here in the west where we breed tall, the large waisted men's pants (e.g. 38,40,42,etc.) with short inseams sit on the shelves of major department stores for months, gathering dust, while the occasional 34 or 36 inseamed pants last less than a day. Do the retailers pay any attention? NOOOOO!! Which is one of the major reasons I switched to women's jeans, once I found a few sources for them with long inseams.

[Bubba136]

I am curious to learn if Nordstroms responds to GBJ's letter. Please keep us posted, GBJ

[new_look]

Dr Shoe. that script is fantastic Very funny,

[Bubba136]

The fallacy in Dr. Shoe's script if the retailer decides to take Dr. Shoe up on his idea, is the styles of shoes he decides to stock. Perhaps Dr. Shoe should give him some advice as to what styles in larger shoes would sell....so he doesn't get stuck with a lot of unsold pairs of large size ugly shoes.

[Firefox]

Surely the sizes they sell are based on market research and requests from customers forwarded to market research. If their policy was based on what they actually sell, then development of new lines would be somewhat static. I'm convinced there isn't enough turnover in 9 to 11 to justify the lasting, stocking and distribution costs for smaller numbers of pairs.

[genebujold]

I've also noted that, at least here in the west where we breed tall, the large waisted men's pants (e.g. 38,40,42,etc.) with short inseams sit on the shelves of major department stores for months, gathering dust, while the occasional 34 or 36 inseamed pants last less than a day. Do the retailers pay any attention? NOOOOO!!

Which is one of the major reasons I switched to women's jeans, once I found a few sources for them with long inseams.

Ahhhh! Same can be said for the slender lines. Talls in a men's 28 are difficult to find! Misses, however, are readily available...