<story><title>How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/amazon_same_day_delivery_how_the_e_commerce_giant_will_destroy_local_retail_.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arjunnarayan</author><text>Yes. The build quality of women&apos;s shoes is astoundingly bad. Sometimes I look at them and they literally feel like glued on piece of leather, pretty on the outside, and nothing more.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s interesting how two different markets have developed (men&apos;s shoes and women&apos;s shoes) that have such different parameters. Men&apos;s shoes have outstanding build quality --- to the point where a good pair of quality shoes gets resoled multiple times. Do women ever resole shoes?</text></item><item><author>cglee</author><text>When Zappos first came out I thought they&apos;d tank. I purchase new basketball/running shoes every 6months, and never ever make a new purchase without trying it on. Playing basketball or running with an even slightly uncomfortable shoe can lead to blistering, back problems, ankle sprains, etc.&lt;p&gt;But my gf at the time thought it was brilliant. What I learned was that a lot of women&apos;s shoes are purchased based on anything except comfort. The quality can be shoddy, the wear can cause excruciating pain, yet some top brands sell for hundreds and even thousands a pair. Swing by the Nordstrom&apos;s women&apos;s shoe dept sometime and take a look at the quality of build. Eavesdrop a bit and take inventory of the questions the clients ask about. (Zappos is started by a bunch of ex-Nordy folks).&lt;p&gt;To this day I&apos;ve only purchased 1 pair of shoes on Zappos, and that&apos;s after I had bought it previously at the dept store (New Balance 993, imo best shoes for walking/running in case you&apos;re wondering).</text></item><item><author>wheels</author><text>Amazon has been doing this in parts of Germany since 2009.  The results haven&apos;t been nearly as dramatic as the article predicts.  As others have indicated, the limiting factor isn&apos;t so much speed of delivery as the inclination to physically inspect items before buying them.  That said, Zappos, now a part of Amazon, has succeeded in doing that in one of the markets that tends the most towards such.  Even so, there are still a lot of places to buy shoes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dclowd9901</author><text>I wouldn&apos;t say it was &quot;bad&quot;. Women&apos;s shoes are designed with fashion and daintiness in mind. They seem flimsy because they &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; flimsy, and they are flimsy because well crafted, long lasting shoes are big and burly with lots of material and stitching. This goes counter to the point of the shoes: to look trim and to make the woman&apos;s foot look small and pretty.</text></comment>
<story><title>How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/amazon_same_day_delivery_how_the_e_commerce_giant_will_destroy_local_retail_.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arjunnarayan</author><text>Yes. The build quality of women&apos;s shoes is astoundingly bad. Sometimes I look at them and they literally feel like glued on piece of leather, pretty on the outside, and nothing more.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s interesting how two different markets have developed (men&apos;s shoes and women&apos;s shoes) that have such different parameters. Men&apos;s shoes have outstanding build quality --- to the point where a good pair of quality shoes gets resoled multiple times. Do women ever resole shoes?</text></item><item><author>cglee</author><text>When Zappos first came out I thought they&apos;d tank. I purchase new basketball/running shoes every 6months, and never ever make a new purchase without trying it on. Playing basketball or running with an even slightly uncomfortable shoe can lead to blistering, back problems, ankle sprains, etc.&lt;p&gt;But my gf at the time thought it was brilliant. What I learned was that a lot of women&apos;s shoes are purchased based on anything except comfort. The quality can be shoddy, the wear can cause excruciating pain, yet some top brands sell for hundreds and even thousands a pair. Swing by the Nordstrom&apos;s women&apos;s shoe dept sometime and take a look at the quality of build. Eavesdrop a bit and take inventory of the questions the clients ask about. (Zappos is started by a bunch of ex-Nordy folks).&lt;p&gt;To this day I&apos;ve only purchased 1 pair of shoes on Zappos, and that&apos;s after I had bought it previously at the dept store (New Balance 993, imo best shoes for walking/running in case you&apos;re wondering).</text></item><item><author>wheels</author><text>Amazon has been doing this in parts of Germany since 2009.  The results haven&apos;t been nearly as dramatic as the article predicts.  As others have indicated, the limiting factor isn&apos;t so much speed of delivery as the inclination to physically inspect items before buying them.  That said, Zappos, now a part of Amazon, has succeeded in doing that in one of the markets that tends the most towards such.  Even so, there are still a lot of places to buy shoes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kamaal</author><text>Well from my own personal experience. When I go out to buy shoes, I look at things like durability, ruggedness, comfort. The shoes must be long lasting and one must be able to wear them for long hours without feeling uncomfortable.&lt;p&gt;Most girls I know don&apos;t have that criteria. The first and foremost criteria for them is they must fashionable, good looking, must match with their dress etc. Given this use case, there is only so much you can do for things like durability and ruggedness. Because you need to make them colorful, with some deigns etc.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately you get what you ask for.</text></comment>