If you wear a size 6, 7 or 8 ladies’ shoe in a medium width, consider yourself fortunate. You can walk into almost any shoe or department store and find a wide selection of styles, colors and fabrics to choose from. Shoe shopping can become a chore for women who wear larger sizes, especially sizes 11 and up. Those who need narrow or wide widths can also encounter shopping challenges.
Thankfully, there are some shoe retailers who care about customers with large and hard-to-find shoe sizes. Three of them make shoe shopping especially easy by providing free shipping and free returns, allowing you to order and try on shoes without shelling out $8 or more each way for shipping:
Endless.com: This is a company from which I’ve ordered the most hard-to-find sizes. They offer very quick shipping, with delivery in two business days. If the shoes don’t fit you well or aren’t what you expected, you initiate your return online and print a prepaid UPS return label from the Endless website. Affix the label to your package and drop it off at your nearest UPS location. I’ve found Endless processes returns and refunds the purchase amount to my credit card very quickly. Endless is owned by Amazon.
Zappos: Another place to find a wide selection of large, narrow and wide shoes is Zappos.com, another company owned by Amazon. Like Endless, Zappos offers free shipping both ways for shoe purchases. Returns of Zappos purchases also begin online. While Endless focuses primarily on shoes and accessories, Zappos also sells a wide range of other items, including clothing and housewares. This may explain why it takes them longer than Endless to process returns and credit your account.
Shoebuy.com: My final source for hard-to-find shoes with free shipping and free returns is Shoebuy.com. Shipping here is not as quick as Endless; it can take up to 10 business days to receive your shoes if you choose the free shipping option. One benefit of Shoebuy is that you can often find a promo code to apply to your purchase. Zappos states on its website that it does not offer coupon or promo codes. I just sent back my first Shoebuy order, so I can’t comment yet on the speediness of their return process.
You can get an extra discount at Shoebuy and Endless by shopping through Ebates to get cash back. Zappos is not an Ebates participating retailer.
If you can’t find the shoes you want at these sites, there are others offering hard-to-find sizes for women online. However, most of them charge for return shipping or shipping both ways. This can add $8 to $23 to the cost of your purchase and/or return.
If you know of other sites offering free shipping and returns for large, narrow and wide women’s shoes, please post a comment with the details. For more tips on customer service and saving money, visit my blog: Who Cares About Customers?