Children's Shoes Cost A Fortune! Where Do You Buy Yours?

Damzel_In_Distress

My son has needs a wide fitting shoe And was out of baby sizes why he was still only little. Hes 3"5 and a size 10 shoe at age 2 :rolleyes:

So he grows that quickly,that it ends up costing a fortune.

Me and his dad were up until now taking it in turns to buy him a pair-its was every 2 months roughly ..:eek:

All his shoes have either come from john lewis-because they sell clarks there anyway amongst lots of other great brands. Or for a trainer/pump ish shoe he goes to foot locker .

His shoes have never been less that £39.99 a pair..Except once,i think the cheapest pair he has had have been £29.99 (lunar jim glow in the dark blue led flashing manic things )

The thing with kids shoes is,that although places like tesco etc may do cheaper shoes,the quailty of them is really not good enough...and more often than not they are made in a plastic-y sort of way that ends up rubbing the childs foot and hurting them. There cheaper because they're made cheaper-and the material there then made form is really not up to a standard of the right comfort for little feet IMO.

Mumolulu

Clarks lover here too. We go to the designer outlet on the M1, to the Clarks factory shop. I don't know the difference between the shoes here and ones on normal clarks shops, but they measure and the shoes are still of the same clarks quality, and I've never had a problem. Shoes generally cost £18 from there, which is almost half price!

I had clarks as a child, and have lovely feet.

flea72

Krystaltips wrote: »

I don't know where you are in the country but there are places that are like Clarks shoe outlets, they're Clarks shoes but cheaper... There's one in Willenhall Nr Wolverhampton but wouldn't know anywhere else...

We have a clarks factory outlet near us, and it stocks exactly the same childrens shoes, at the same price, as the main high street stores

it used to be that factory shops were out of season, and thats why you got good bargains, but it seems not anymore - they have just started to get their doodles canvas range in, and they are £15+ a pair this year!

Flea

SunnyGirl

I used Clarks or Start Rite for my kids shoes its what I always had & I have no problems with my feet at all. My DD (now 16) was a 'D' width fitting so we always had to go to a specialist Start Rite stockist in Manchester and my DS2 (now 14) was the other way an 'H' to 'HH' width fitting None of the cheaper shoes would have been any use to either of them. The other two were pretty bog standard fittings. It gets worse as they get older though once they start wanting Timberlands & Rockports as school shoes. The last pair I bought DS2 at Christmas were £130 :eek: They'll last him until the end of the school year hopefully unless he grows again - he takes an adult size 10 :rotfl:

kirstle99

Hi all, wow thanks for so many replies this is great! Yes I agree, shoes are not something to scimp on at all as I know properly fitting shoes are a must. Our only shoe shop in town is Clarks so not much choice for getting shoes fitted, but we do live quite close to Liverpool too.
I think I will have a good rummage through the links (thanks for these) and i'll start saving a couple of quid a week for shoes as someone suggested!

Thanks all!

Nicki

I buy Clarks for my two too.

The way I see it is that I absolutely hate wearing shoes which don't fit me properly. I can try on shoes in my usual size in a variety of different styles and maybe only 2 out of 5 pairs will fit me properly without rubbing at any point, and of those 2, only 1 might be comfortable enough to wear all day every day. With a child, particularly a very young child, they aren't really able to explain to you whether a shoe is comfortable or not, and they certainly don't have the experience to tell you whether they think it will be comfortable to wear all day long. That's where the experience of a trained fitter comes in. I wouldn't consider buying my shoes anywhere except somewhere with a children's fitter I trusted to check that the shoes I was buying were the right ones for my children's feet, and I certainly wouldn't buy any shoes without my child trying them on and having the fitting checked, irrespective of whether the shoes were in the "correct size" or not.

dangers

I have never paid the full price for shoes for my two boys - but their shoes have always been Clarks. We are lucky in that we have a Clarks seconds shop less than 10 miles away, and if we fancy a day out, we take a trip to either Clarks Village in Street or to the outlet centre in Swindon. However, we have just purchased a paid of shoes for my older boy (10) and they were £25. His previous pair of shoes had lasted since the beginnning of the school year though and they do get a LOT of use.

blue_monkey_2

OP, if you go into Clarks and get your LO measured, come home and then go online and you can get styles delivered to the shop of your choice. You can then try them on at the store and see if any of them are OK for him. Choose different styles. You can get all of the details here:

http://www.clarks.co.uk/helpandInfo/CustomerCareCollectFromStore

shazrobo

when my two sons were little they had clarkes shoes too, as i believe they fitted better than any other brands, they are 13 now, and will only wear trainers, and at an adult size 15 :eek: they are costing me a fortune, any body know of any where cheap for bigger sized mens shoes please??

gairlochgal

Strictly John Lewis for us as they do the best fitting service I've found. Mine are 11 and 8 now and I've really noticed how the shape of their feet has changed over the years and reckon I need the professional advice on fitting. The 11 yr old is close to full grown now so I've started to branch out a bit more for her and just got some brill Dr Marten sneakers online.