The Short Life of my Bata Running Shoes

This will be a rant. It’ll be short. I bought shoes from Bata the other week, beautiful black and green shoes, so I could use them for training for the Standard Chartered Marathon; in fact, that’s all they were to be used for, running.

When I was buying them I talked to the sales lady asking her which shoes would be good for running and she showed me the racks that had the Power branded shoes on them. There was a lot of variety and it was difficult to choose so it came down colour really. I liked the blue kicks but the ones in stock just weren’t as sexy as the green and blacks. After I bought them I took a picture of them to show them off.

Running with them was a dream! They were so much more comfortable than the shoes that I I was using before. They fit almost perfectly and I looked good with them. However, in the middle of my 5th session training session, I begin to feel like there’s something stuck to the bottom of my left shoe. Upon checking, I threw my hands up in frustration; my sole was coming apart!!!

I tweeted Bata Kenya (side note: anyone else notice it’s easier to get customer service on twitter than using other means?) and I’m told to take the shoes back to the shop so that they may either be replaced or fixed. Which I did and was informed that it would take at least 2 weeks to replace them because them have to go all the way back to their HQ in Limuru so management can see and authorise a replacement. I was mad, and I almost let it off on the sales lady at Bata Uchumi, and I did let it go for the lady I reached out to over phone - if you’re reading this I’m sorry, it wasn’t your fault.

But this policy that things have to go all the way to Limuru so management can approve replacements is ridiculous! It’s something I paid for that got spoilt in an unreasonably short amount of time. It’s clear that I did nothing to ruin them in anyway. They would go from my run and back into their box. I feel that if I can’t get a refund, they should be replaced in a much shorter time. After all I did pay for them. Peace!!!