“Sounds great,” the employee responds with an energetic zeal. “That’ll just be a $10.00 fitting fee.”

“FITTING FEE?!” the shock immediately turns to anger. “I’m not paying a fee to try on a shoe!!”

“Sorry, sir,” the employee calmly states, as if having dealt with the same reaction thousands of times before. “But this store is one of many brick-and-mortar retailers forced to charge for providing fitting service to customers. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to compete with online retailers.”

After leaving the store you then join the millions of other disgruntled consumers and take to the review blogs and Twitter to vent your frustration. Reviewing other consumer complaints, along with the retailers’ responses, leads you to the realization that, alas, these footwear companies are merely attempting to gain a profit in an ever-changing, costlier marketplace. Kind of like their cousins in the airline industry.

You’re probably thinking, ok, enough. I get it. If that ever happens we’re decades from ever seeing profiteering schemes like that…right?

As of this writing that hypothetical is still, well, hypothetical. In the U.S., that is. In Australia it’s already a reality for many customers.

According to a recent story on National Public Radio (listen here), some retailers in Australia have begun charging shoppers a fitting fee – for example, $50 to try on ski boots – due to the fact that so many shoppers are trying on clothes and footwear only to purchase them at a lower price online.

If the shopper purchases the item in the store, the fee is waived. If not, well, then that’s the most expensive taste test they’ll ever experience.

NPR mentions one jeans retailer claiming so many customers try on designer jeans only to buy them online that his sales have dropped 25%. That ain’t chump change.

I’d like to think that if I owned a physical store I’d refrain from such fee-finagling. But when profits are declining while competitors are gaining market share, it doesn’t take Warren Buffet to realize that it’s time to start looking at what sets you apart from those competitors and, yes, assign a monetary value to those differences.

At Shoefitr we saw other flaws in the shoe purchasing process – for instance, the amount of returns made from online purchases because of consumers not knowing that a size 8 in New Balance is actually a different length than their current pair of Asics – and envisioned a solution that provides a better shopping experience for consumers and lower costs for retailers.

And it turns out that Shoefitr would also solve the problem consumers are beginning to face in Australia (See how it works). So shoe retailers across America – how about we leave the excessive fees to the airlines?”