Net Red "Old Shoes" Quality Big Secret: Nearly Half Of The Sample Is Not Qualified.

At present, there is a net red product in the footwear market, known as "old shoes" or "walking shoes". Businessmen claim that this shoe is specially designed for the elderly, which is more suitable for elderly people's foot characteristics, and is comfortable and skid proof. It sounds that such shoes should be especially suitable for the elderly, but some elderly people do not feel comfortable with old shoes. Sometimes they are not even as good as ordinary shoes. What is the matter?

Through surveys in Beijing, Shanghai and other places, many supermarkets and professional shoe cities and even some regular shopping malls have special counters selling so-called "old shoes". In a shop in Beijing, this product sells well and sells hundreds of pairs per day on average.

Salesman Supermarket: comfortable! Many elderly people wear this foot badly. It has a foot arch support. This shoe is specially designed for the elderly. It is very comfortable.

According to the survey, almost all shoe stores regard comfort as the biggest selling point of products. Some businesses even claim that they can back off when they buy uncomfortable shoes.

Supermarket Salesperson: you're probably pretty good. I'll buy it back for him. If he doesn't feel comfortable or what you feel, it doesn't matter if you bring it back.

Besides comfort, safety is another big selling point for elderly shoes.

Supermarket Salesperson: safe! This rubber bottom is skid proof. It's not safe. Safety. Safety shoes. This is called safety shoes.

Sales staff generally claim that comfortable feet and skid safety are the basic characteristics of the elderly shoes, and also the fundamental reason for the elderly shoe becoming the net red product in recent years. Subsequently, the reporter also registered part of the electronic business platform, search "old shoes" found that these e-commerce platform sales of elderly shoes are few tens of thousands, many even more than 800 thousand, the price ranging from tens of dollars to thousands of yuan, all kinds of brands are dazzling.

Compared with ordinary shoes, the vast majority of businesses claim that the "old shoes" they sell are products specially designed according to the characteristics of the feet of the elderly. They are not suitable for the elderly but not crowded with feet. They also focus on two key points of comfort and safety.

Many businessmen have unanimously claimed that the elderly shoes are comfortable and safe. Recently, the Yangtze River Delta consumer protection committee consisting of four consumer rights organizations in Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang also conducted a comparative test on the quality of "elderly shoes". But in contrast with the publicity of the businessmen, the reporter in the testing organization saw that during the testing process, there were long cracks in the soles, and the upper and the bottom walls were opened. The common indicators of the basic properties of these shoes were repeatedly touched on the standard red line.

Yang Qing, the consumer guidance department of Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee: among the 80 samples, 20% of the shoes are too soft, and 15% of the shoes are too hard.

Of the 80 batches of samples purchased in this comparison test, 54 were collected from the online business platform, 16 from physical stores, and 10 from TV shopping.

At present, the so-called "old shoes" sold in the market is a new term of footwear in recent years. In order to open the market quickly, many businesses cater to the psychological needs of the elderly and enhance their publicity in terms of comfort, safety and other functional aspects, which also makes the development of the elderly footwear products develop rapidly. Professionals say that the hardness of the soles, that is, the hardness and softness of the soles, is closely related to the comfort performance of the shoes.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather Inspection Center Deputy Chief Engineer Shen Chanjuan: the soles hardness value is too large, that is, this shoe sole is particularly hard, and then wearing very uncomfortable, walking process, you will feel that in this process of bending, the bending force will be very big, feet will feel very tired. If the hardness value is very small, it means that the sole will be relatively soft. If you walk on uneven ground or hard objects below, you will feel that this will be a little bit of a foot, which will affect a comfortable degree.

According to the standards of children's shoes, nearly half of the "elderly shoes" are not up to standard.

Because old shoes are new products and there are no special product standards, the vast majority of production enterprises are clearly implementing the standards of "travel shoes" or "casual shoes". In view of the change of the foot type and the decline of body function and the demand for children's shoes, the testing organization adopted the standard of children's leather shoes formally implemented in 2017, and evaluated the hardness of the outsoles of the elderly shoes.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather inspection center Gu Liang Yi: at present, the domestic market does not assess the hardness of the outsole of adult shoes. Only children's leather shoes have technical requirements for the hardness of the external bottom. Therefore, we refer to the children's leather shoes standards, and choose the 45-65 reasonable range.

According to the relevant standards, the hardness of the sole should be between 45~65, whether it is solid core or microcellular foam sole. However, during the testing process, up to 38 batches of shoes samples from the 80 batches of samples were not within the standard requirements, accounting for 47.5% of the total sample size.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather inspection center Gu Yi Yi: a total of 16 batches of elderly shoes outsole hardness requirements of less than 45 degrees, 12 batches of outsole hardness is greater than 65 degrees.

There are many well-known brands of samples whose hardness index is not within the standard requirements.

The outsole hardness comparison test reveals the true state of the functional gimmick that many businessmen claim to be "more comfortable" for elderly shoes.

Detection personnel, compared with the icing on the cake comfort, wear is a more important performance of shoes, so almost all the standards of footwear, from different angles on the wearability of shoes to make corresponding technical requirements. Folding resistance is one of the most important indicators.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather inspection center Tang Yufeng: normally some of us wear shoes, and he has a broken shoe bottom, which is probably because of the problem of folding resistance.

According to the standard requirements of casual shoes, after 40 thousand flexing tests, the length of the bottom wall, upper or sole should not be greater than 5 millimeters. However, experiments show that the two enterprises have clearly implemented the "casual shoes" standard of the "Xi" brand casual shoes for men and women. After testing, the length of the left side of the left foot is 10.7 millimeters, which is more than two times that of the standard.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather inspection center Tang Yufeng: endurance test, it is actually a imitation of our body's usual walking process, a flexion process of the foot. This is our comparative experiment. There are 14 old shoes that are out of line with the folding resistance. All of them are cracked or opened to exceed the standard requirements.

In the 14 batch of samples that appeared to be rubber or crack after folding resistance test, Augu Shi Deng casual shoes were the most serious problem, and there were 3 rubber joints in the left and right shoes, of which the inner sole of the left foot was 37.2 mm, which was 7.5 times the standard limit. The test of the "Er Kang" men's single shoes, left and right feet have appeared to varying degrees of glue, including the left foot inside the bottom of the opening 9.1 mm, the right foot medial bottom 5.8 mm, all exceeded the 5 limit of the standard. This pair of AOKANG single shoes, the rubber parts appear on the sole, and the right foot soles are up to 7.6 millimeters.

Professionals say that most of the elderly shoes that are not flexitied are mostly because the manufacturers have used raw materials such as shoes or glue which are not up to standard in order to reduce production costs, which not only seriously affects the performance of shoes, but also directly reduces the service life of shoes.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather Inspection Center Deputy Chief Engineer Shen Chanjuan: more serious is that the soles will be broken, this can not be worn. Next there is a slight point, that is, the sole may produce new, small cracks, or the joint between the sole and upper can be opened. If this is the case, if the rainy day or the road is full of water, the sole and the side will seep into the shoes.

Wear resistance is another important indicator to test whether the old shoes are durable. The standard stipulates that after testing the shoes on the wear-resistant tester for 20 minutes, the maximum length of wear marks shall not exceed 14 millimeters. However, in the testing organization, the double label is known as the old shoes sold by Fujian Xiamen Dian Le Trade Co., Ltd. the measured value of wear marks is 17.5 millimeters, and the right foot is 17.9 millimeters, which exceeds the standard limit. Testing personnel, wear resistance is not up to standard, not only affect the life of the elderly shoes, more importantly, it is also very likely to bring security risks to the elderly users.

Shanghai Jian Zheng leather inspection center Tang Yufeng: the soles will be easy to wear after wearing, and the patterns on the bottom will wear away. In the process of wearing, old people can easily slip.

During the testing process, there are 14 batches of samples which do not meet the requirements of the enterprise's standard of abrasion resistance, including many popular brands, such as Beijing's probiotics, Shanghai's hundred step Jian and Jian Fukang, and Fujian's Chianda, step-by-step, Kang Huang, jade mouse brand and other elderly shoes.

Market demand is big but no professional standard.

In recent years, the number of aging population in China has shown a rapid growth trend. According to the data released by the National Bureau of statistics, as of the end of 2018, China's population over 60 years old reached 249 million, accounting for 17.9% of the total population. The survey of Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee shows that the size of the huge aging population has provided huge market space for the elderly shoe products, and the enterprises producing and selling elderly shoes have increased from more than 1700 in 2014 to more than 3500 in 2018.

Yang Qing, the consumer guidance department of Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee: the survey results show that nearly half of the consumers have stated that he has bought shoes for the elderly, and even many of them have bought over 1/3 pairs of elderly shoes. Besides, there are also about consumers who will buy them in the future, or buy old shoes for their families.

According to the statistics of Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee, if the price of 150 yuan per pair of shoes is calculated, each elderly person buys a pair of shoes. In 2018, the market volume of China's elderly shoes has reached 6 billion 680 million yuan. With the rapid growth of consumer groups, the increasing number of production enterprises and the formation of subdivision industries, the problems also arise. That is, the products sold as "old shoes" are booming, but in fact, there are no standards for elderly shoes in China. Reporters found an interesting phenomenon in the survey: Although most elderly shoe products are marked by Executive Standards for "travel shoes" or "casual shoes", salesmen almost all emphasize the concept of "old shoes" when they sell products, and intentionally or unintentionally dilute their relationship with travel shoes or casual shoes.

Salesperson Zheng Ping: Generally speaking, sneakers are the sports shoes we wear. They all say that they are thinner in front. Our shoes are widened and heightened, because the old man does not feel wronged in his feet when he is old, so his toe in front of his feet moves back and forth. Old people also say that there are those who have corns. He does not mean to be afraid of grinding. Afraid to bump into it, the front part of it is widened, it is the foot can not touch it, so it feels comfortable.

In the 80 batches of the contrast test, 47 batches of shoes were executed, and 6 batches executed the "casual shoes" standard, and there were 27 batches of them. For example, Jingchen brand shoes for elderly people are marked by the implementation standard QB/T2673-2013, which is actually the standard of footwear industry logo in light industry in China, not the standard of footwear products. And this pair of safety shoes that claim to be safer and more comfortable is labeled GB/T15107-2015, but the reporter found that there is no such standard in footwear products.

Tao Ailian, Secretary General of Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee: the old shoes we have taken this time have become one of the subdivision industries of footwear, which has become a new concept of consumption in the past two years. From the comparative investigation, we can see that the standards applied to all the elderly shoes are very different. For example, some of them use the standards of travel shoes, others use the standard of casual shoes. The confusion of this standard brings about the quality of this product, and the quality difference is very large.

There is no standard so-called "old shoes", and the quality of products is naturally good and bad. Through investigation, we found that in order to solve this problem, the Yangtze River Delta Consumer Protection Committee carried out a comparative experiment, and commissioned the relevant professional institutions to formulate the first national standard for the elderly shoes.

Tao Ailian, Secretary General of Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee: the establishment of the group standard is to lead the industry to more standardized and healthy development, and to really provide consumers with such commodities that meet the needs and qualities of the elderly consumers, and prevent some of the good and bad products on the market from appearing.

The biggest difference between the newly issued "old shoes" group standard and the technical index requirement is that it adopts the general performance indicators such as folding and abrasion resistance in the existing "travel shoes" and "casual shoes", and also increases the corresponding functional indicators according to the actual wear requirements of the elderly, so that the shoes for the elderly can be truly worthy of the name and become the shoes that are suitable for the elderly in the true sense. According to the reporter's understanding, since the issuance of the old shoe group standard, there are already more than 50 enterprises undertaking this standard.

In the elderly society, aging has made the old shoes become an industry. Shoes with special needs to meet the needs of the elderly are a good thing. But the current status of the industry is obviously not satisfactory. It is a consensus for the elderly to adopt the old shoes group standard for the elderly. I wish the elderly can wear more comfortable shoes for the elderly at an early date.