I went into Loakes today as by chance I was passing the shop in Birmingham, and I was thinking about spending £200 on a new pair of shoes. I’m on my feet all day with the job I do and I need them to be comfortable and long-lasting and in the past I have found Loakes to be really good
![](https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2019-09-12-at-08.25.33.png)
But I walked out without buying a pair. Why?
They make Loakes in two widths, F is medium and G is wide, and I know I have to have Gs with my big boaty feet.
Only about a quarter of the pairs on display were Gs, and you have to turn each pair of shoes over to read some small writing on the underneath to see which which they are. So every time I found a pair I liked I had to turn them over – and guess what, they were Fs every time!
I was thinking “Why would they not just sort them by width and have one shelf which had all the G ones on??
![](https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2019-09-12-at-08.24.20.png)
Of course you could sort them by lots of other things like colour or style, but there’s no need to do that because I could immediately SEE what colour they are, and also I may not have decided which colour I’m going to have yet, ~ but I definitely know they have to be Gs rather than F, so there’s no point in showing me anythingthat’s an F.
And unlike the colour, I can’t easily see the width – the only way to tell what you’re looking at is to turn them over and read the small print, which is incredibly annoying
Even the sales guy found it difficult because he would show me a pair of shoes that fitted my spec and then we turn them over – and sure enough they were Fs again
Surely if you watch customers suffering, turning over every pair of shoes and reading the underneath, a small part of your brain would think “maybe we could have a better system?”
![](https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2019-09-12-at-08.24.34.png)
So in the end I couldn’t find any with the style I wanted that where the right width and I left.
£200 they could have had!
Will they change anything? Probably not.
Are they actually using their brains? Probably not.
What annoys YOUR customers, what do your customers find difficult, what do your customers give up over and leave your shop or website?
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