Study Shows the Average Woman Owns 17 Pairs of Shoes, Spends $49 a Pair

March 17, 2011 • By Erika

I came across this interesting study on the average US woman and her shoe preferences yesterday. Since everyone’s comments on affordable, mid-range and luxury shoes vary so much here on YNS, I thought I’d shared this today to find out just how we all stack up against the average.

So according to Shop Smart magazine’s study, women own about 17 pairs of shoes yet would only wear three pairs on a regular basis. Women also buy an average of three pairs a year and spend $49 for each.

Another interesting fact is that 1 in 5 women go shoe shopping to cheer themselves up. Well, that’s fine because as Lisa Lee Freeman, editor-in-chief of Shop Smart said, “Shoes never make your butt look big, you don’t have to worry about squeezing into them if you’ve put on a couple of pounds, and they can instantly make you feel sexier… they’re friends through thick and thin.”

A few more revelations from the study:

28% feel shoes are an important part of their outfit
More than half (51%) notice shoes other people are wearing
39% prefer flats but 25% admit to have worn heels 4″ or higher on at least one occasion
46% have bought ugly shoes for comfort but a whopping 60% are willing to tolerate pain for fashion
Nearly one-third (31%) have ever spent over $100 on a single pair
Almost a third (29%) have bought shoes online

So how true are these for you?

Because we’re Your Next Shoes, we feel like women own a lot more than 17 pairs of shoes and under-declared their true number for this study. It’s also interesting to note that the study also found out that although 86% are up front about their shoe purchase, there is that 14% who admit to hiding at least one purchase.

Are you one of those women?

Check out the rest of the figures from Shop Smart‘s shoe poll at Digital Journal.