Aibu to assume clarks shoes are best for kids?

[Fishface77]

My daughter is 4 and needs shoes/trainers. I went to sports direct and she attached Gerald to some frozen ones.

I want her to have clarks but my DH said these would be fine.
Where is best for children's shoes! There's so much choice (and so much expense) but I want her to have a decent pair of shoes.

Start Rite for years (he is 20 now, so chooses his own). I took him to Clarks for his first pair. They tried to sell me something falling off his feet, as his feet were wide, and they could only sell me two sizes too big for the width.

I then went to Start Rite, and pointed out the pair I liked, only to be told that I would be sold what fitted him, as opposed to what I liked. I stayed with Start Rite for a decade for him.

I think Clarks' fitting service has gone markedly downhill - certainly our local small-town store has. Have also had the same experience as others, of being told my child needs a certain size & width, then they find they don't have any in stock but try to palm off another sized pair onto me.

Quality of shoes and laces was poor on our last visit for school shoes - the holes for the laces were too tight which meant re-lacing took ages, & the laces were different widths/quality on each shoe out of the box! At £45 a pop, that's just not good enough.

Customer service from the various Clarks sales assistants has been pretty rubbish for the past 2yrs, altho the managers were nice, and helpful when we had to take school shoes back after their 'fitted' size was too small. Assistants were very poor listeners and just didn't seem to like their work.

We tried start rite as well. She is only a infant size 3 but her physio wanted her in proper shoes to see if it helps her ankles. Her feet measure wider than an H.
The brand is pom d'api. Very few UK stockist from looking online. The man in the shop (precious soles in potters bar) said once her shoe size increases past the infant sizes, there will be more choice for her which are cheaper. I hope some as at £70 a pair for baby shoes, we will be broke lol.

Trainers aren't worn that much so as long as they are comfy you don't need to pay a premium to have Clarks. As for school shoes, both my kids had clarks all the way through primary school and they lasted really well and polished up nicely. Now they are both at Secondary I wish that they could still get the sturdy Clarks available for kids. My daughter still wears adult Clarks but they do not last as long as the children's range.

Clarks shoes disintegrate. Start-Rite are much more robust.

At that age I think dd ended up with a pair from asda that perversely fitted!

Clarks are not deep enough. She has very bendy feet & used to pronate. She absolutely cannot wear ballet flats.

I used to swear by Clarks (my eldest DD is 14) but I don't think the quality is as good anymore, they tend to fall apart quite easily and are still very expensive

I prefer Startrite too. I think Clarks are over rated, a Clarks shop assistant tried selling me a pair of shoes that my 4 year old lg's foot was clearly bulging out off!
I can't trust them now so going to go to our local Startrite supplier from now on.

there are many good even great brands of shoes (or even non-brands) for kids out there.

it astonishes me how many people (or is it just on MN) fall for the "must get fitted properly in Clarks" bullshit. It's yet another way a company has successfully used modern parental anxiety for financial gain.

Clarks are extremely good at marketing and nothing else.

Their shoes are expensive, poor quality and badly fitted. They barely last a month IME of 2 young DC. I hate the heavily gendered styling.

I am a big fan of Happy Little Soles too, and Superfit, Pediped and Froddo from independent shoe shops.

Either spend £10 and replace often, or £50 for quality. Clarks are neither one thing or the other.

I don't rate Clarks at all! We've had more than one bad experience with them resulting in quite a lot of money wasted. As if keeping 3 rapidly growing daughters in shoes isn't expensive enough! We have a local shop with a fitting service, never a problem so far. It's important to them that their customers come to them again so they look after them well!

Clarkes until they got to an adult size 1 then appropriate shoes from whoever if they seem to fit well. I took to taking children to McArther Glen retail park (M1) with what I think is old season Clarks shoes sold there heavily discounted. A fast measuring service and you just then pick the shoes off the 'peg'. No waiting yonks for the girl / boy to come teetering through from back shop with loads of boxes or alternatively as ALWAYS happened at out town Clarks our size in chosen style not in stock!

Always Clarks for my 2 LOs.

DS has had shoes from a few shops, at the moment he has a pair of Clarks doodles and they seem really comfy - he loves them. Don't think they're too fugly but agree some Clarks shoes are awful. These were only £20 as well as opposed to the usual £36 ish that Clarks charge

I like Vans trainers too, they seem comfy and he walks well in them.

M&S are a bit over invested in the ballerina fussy sandal styles for girls, but there are some good gems in there if you look.

Startrite all the way. Fitted with brilliance at an independent shop that has been around for 100 years. I feel like I'm playing at being a grown-up when we go in (and a staff member holds the door for you ).

Balletgirlmum, we did that for our now 13 year old, tesco trainers fitted her as a toddler. But the baby has a stupidly high instep and not even supermarket shoes fitted. Ideally I wouldn't be spending that much on boots for a baby who is barely walking. We were pretty much desperate and exhausted all other options. Velcro straps wouldn't do up due to how high her foot goes.

I do have an eBay search set up now for the next size up. Managed to get a pair 2 sizes up for £12, which are being stored for when her feet grow.

Shopping in aldi after to offset the price of her boots

YABVU there are so many good brands that are better than Clarks and harder wearing. Dd used to intoe when she was at pre school, so the othotic consultant recommended a strong and stable shoe like Kickers, I had her fitted in Clarks, and bought her shoes from Kickers, they lasted 1.5 years until she grew out of them, best £50 spent, Clarks used to be worn after about 1 month.

Clarks are hideous and thankfully don't fit DTs. They have skinny feet and need start rite or ricosta. If they fit I would have no issue with supermarket or M&s or whatever shoes and save myself a fortune.

Another vote for Happy Little Soles, if you phone them up they are fantastically helpful, DD1 got a pair of school shoes from there that she didn't think were comfortable and when I spoke to them they said 'Oh, if that's the problem then we can send you these ones that aren't on the website yet'. Brilliant. They have a loyalty scheme as well.

Thanks to the kids I now have a pair of Vivo Barefoot shoes (DD1 wears their school shoes, I wear them to work) and a pair of Livie and Luca adult shoes and they are both so comfortable it's unbelievable (and the Livie and Luca ones gets lots of compliments).

T bar style suited her better as a toddler but the instep problem is very familiar. Dds is incredibly high.

She just learnt not to care what the style was as long as they fitted & 60 odd releves a day helped strengthen her feet.

I won't buy clarks. DD has an H fitting foot - v wide and as Clarks don't do an H they try to sell us shoes that are too narrow but 1 or 2 sizes longer than her current size as they claim it the extra length evens out the fact that the shoes are too narrow! She was very vocal in telling the assistant that the shoes hurt her toes when the assistant said they were a perfect fit! I buy her Startrite now, and sometimes go the shop but as our nearest independent shoe shop is a long journey I bought a foot measuring gauge from the Startrite website and sometimes just measure her myself and buy online. I measure her before I go to the shoe shop and so far have always got the same measurement as the sales assistant so I think I've got the hang of it.

DS has Geox as he needs to fit an orthotic in his shoes.

they lasted 1.5 years until she grew out of them

surely if the shoes lasted 1.5 years they were massively oversized to begin with? I know feet don't grow that quickly but that seems an excessive amount of time.

Not if you are like my dd Peggy. She went up roughly just under half a size every year we used to replace her shoes with the same size.