Archibald London Hand Welted Shoes - preorder issues, discussion,and resolution.

[j ingevaldsson]

^^^ The ideal review would be made by a very knowledgeable person with no affiliate whatsoever towards the industry in any way, buying the shoes at full price, wearing them for at least 5 years, and then picked them apart. That is not particularly realistic though.

Personally I've reviewed both shoes I've bought at full price, got discounted or as payment for advertising (way back in the days), and received for free with the purpose of doing a review (and clearly explained to the brand that they have no say whatsoever on the content). As long as it is clearly stated whichever of these that is the case, I have no problem with either, then readers have the opportunity to judge things as is. I have written great things on stuff I've bought full price and not so great things about stuff received for free, and all in between, as long as it's explained and motivated in a good way what's the reason behind the conclusions, it seems to work for both readers and the brand owners (with a few exceptions). However, I would never do a review of anything that I'm clearly biased towards, like any of the brands we sell at the company I work for or so, I see no point in that since even if I genuinely and objectively thought it was great, readers could always question motivation and my objectivity, so wouldn't add much to anything.

What one should always have in mind though, is that if say I was writing positive things about stuff just because I received things for free, that would be proven wrong eventually by others, and in the long run would hurt the trust and value of the blog severely.

On tearing things apart, sure, there's things you can get to know doing that, but if you know shoes well you can judge a lot of things by handling the shoes and - of course - wearing them (which I always do for a decent amount of times before doing reviews, and state how many times, after all it's to be worn the shoes are made for. I don't wait 5 years though, but I do plan to do some "follow-ups showcasing more in detail how some shoes age, apart from just the bi-annual summary in pics and texts I do of all pairs I have). Then breakdowns are always interesting, but I would put that as a different thing than a review (see for example the link to a teardown of shoes from three brands I posted on the previous page).

 

[JohnMRobie]

The only thing I'd wonder about with someone who bought the shoes at full price and reviewing them is are they overlooking details because they want to feel good about their purchase - I forget where I saw it but there was a fascinating study about consumer habits and when the buyer watched reviews. I was quite surprised how many people watched positive reviews AFTER they had purchased a product in order to reinforce their purchase decision as a sort of validation. With a professional reviewer, hopefully they're compensated in a different way through ad revenue or something to enable them to not have to worry about whether they need to justify their purchase to themselves and could be honest but in amateur reviews I'd be curious on the impact and suspect you'd get kind of what you have now of a mixed bag of varying quality.

// edit
I also think there is likely a difference between a professional reviewer and an amateur reviewer receiving free product for their reviews in how they behave. Where a professional needs to rely on their reputation over a long period of time I think there is an incentive there to be honest and accurate to maintain their audience and their audience's trust whereas an amateur reviewer who has done just a couple may be less focused on maintaining that reputation in the long term and the disincentive to be overly positive is lost.

 

[WhyUEarly]

Honestly, that was the impetus of me purchasing the shoes to try and do a review on. I’m not a reviewer, just a guy who likes shoes but I saw a review someone with somewhat narrow experience with shoes posted and decided it was worth it to me to try and see if the information was accurate and get it out there (I had IRL friends who had asked about the shoes and I wanted to know if I could recommend them to them as well) The sale provided an opportunity for me to do so with a relatively small financial impact. For what it’s worth I’m out the cost of the shoes on this endeavor.

Uhh shouldn't they at least refund you?

 

[dukenukem4ever]

Wow thank goodness I didn’t jump on that AoL handwelt train. Never liked their lasts anyway.

 

[Magnanimist]

Appreciate AoL's transparency regarding this unfortunate circumstance. I'm confident the company will make things right for its customers.

Time to move on from that particular shoemaker, however. The supplier perpetrated fraud plain and simple. Safe bet the owner has done it before too.

 

[j ingevaldsson]

Appreciate AoL's transparency regarding this unfortunate circumstance. I'm confident the company will make things right for its customers.

Time to move on from that particular shoemaker, however. The supplier perpetrated fraud plain and simple. Safe bet the owner has done it before too.

If they, as seem to be the case, have been betrayed and fooled by this manufacturer, are they actually considering to continue to work with them?

 

[clee1982]

yea, they're still trying to do that, not sure why, and short of on site 24/7 QC I don't know how you get pass with the trust issue

 

[shirtingfantasy]

I think the “no middleman” middleman has responsibility in ensuring the product is in accordance with the spec they claimed

Can a restaurant say “hey we didn’t grow the vegetable, this is from farm to table, I hope you don’t refund that and don’t sue us” if customers developed salmonellosis after consuming a salad?

 

[shirtingfantasy]

Half-related question here:

Are they really using vegetable tanned calfskin?

it looks more like tanned cowhide (unless they embossed the calfskin) ?‍♂️

 

[JohnMRobie]

It’s embossed. Was supposed to be pebbled but the craftsman screwed up the order on the process so it flattened out

 

[Betta]

It’s embossed. Was supposed to be pebbled but the craftsman screwed up the order on the process so it flattened out

Based on all the findings, I would even doubt the "he screwed up" to "purposefully".

 

[deliku]

Question: how firmly was the outsole glued to the uppers? Was the stitching even necessary to hold it all together? Because at this point it doesn’t sound far off from a plain old cemented construction shoe with decorative stitching, which is pretty shocking. That’s like Cole Haan level when they’re claiming to be on par with Enzo Bonafe.

 

[Spaghettimatt]

Based on all the findings, I would even doubt the "he screwed up" to "purposefully".

Isn’t the leather supplier different from the shoe manufacturer?

This is a **** up of legendary proportions but the allegations in this thread and the other AOL thread are getting out of hand.

 

[Betta]

Isn’t the leather supplier different from the shoe manufacturer?

This is a **** up of legendary proportions but the allegations in this thread and the other AOL thread are getting out of hand.

Well based on all the issues like 2 years ago not knowing their GYW was HW, amongst others all over their threads, is it really unwarranted?
From a basic statistics point of view if in a random batch of any given product lets say 100. I check 10 and find 5 of those are out of spec at what point do you keep going and check the rest? and is this related to only 1 product?

Edited for clarity.

 

[clee1982]

they were definitely learn as they go I would say that...