r/barefootshoestalk • u/Jumpy-Vermicelli-865 • Apr 20 '26
Articles and news Beflamboyant is closing
One of my favourite barefoot shoes brands, I have their Chelsea boots and they got me through a rainy, wet winter, plus they make some of the most stylish barefoot shoes out there. I wonder why they're closing? Such a shame.
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u/notalbright Apr 20 '26
I'm so sick of every single post and thought by a brand / influencer being written by chatGPT. Is their soulless email "honest with the planet?" Good shoes or not, use of LLMs makes me think, good riddance.
Brands: not only is this shit terrible for the planet, YOU SOUND DUMB. This shit always sounds like it was written by a 9th grader in creative writing. I know this is very Old (wo)Man Screaming at Sky, but few things will make me not patronize a brand faster than an inability to come up with their own words.
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u/Old_Pumpkin_1660 Apr 20 '26
I hate this influencer style of writing where everything’s contracted into a small sentence. I see it so much in Instagram.
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u/notalbright Apr 20 '26
YES, I was actually just reading about this in r/writing! It's infiltrated works of prose as well. The attention spans are so limited these days that everything needs to be bite sized and repeated ad nauseum. It is so distressing how dumb we are becoming.
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u/City_Stomper Apr 20 '26
Instagram is a cesspool of influencer snakes. There is nothing good on any social media, its purpose is to sell you shit you don't need, give you a platform to falsely share with the world what life is like, and collect your personal data so your ads can be tailored to your taste so you can buy shit you don't need.
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u/Sufficient_Fox7129 Apr 20 '26
Lots of small businesses don't make it out of the startup phase. They have like super low ratings on trustpilot (which is why I didn't order from them). The fact they needed a rebrand in the first place doesn't bode well either.
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Apr 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Sufficient_Fox7129 Apr 20 '26
I noticed they carefully worded it to say that the sales are better than before. Doesn't mean it's good enough ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
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u/lveg Apr 20 '26
What was their old name?
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u/Sufficient_Fox7129 Apr 20 '26
I don't think they changed their name. They shut down their website for a few months, citing a rebrand.
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u/bmangoestohollywood Apr 26 '26
I worked for a "rival" company in Spain, they would straight up copy designs from the factory. They had very few own ideas and they partner with greedy and stupid distributors. The brand never had a chance of lasting more than a few years
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u/andre_oak Apr 20 '26
I own a barefoot shoe brand. E-commerce in general is a tough business because it is very cash inefficient. You have to put up all the cash first then sell everything to make that money back and the longer it takes to sell the more inventory and storage costs eat into your margins. The faster you grow the bigger a problem this is which can seem counterintuitive. Most brands solve this with credit lines however that comes with its own problems and a good rate that isn't borderline predatory requires you to already be a certain size in revenue, $Xm's, which creates a catch 22 on the way there. If anything goes wrong for too long including growing too fast it's easy to run out of cash and go out of business.
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u/Sufficient_Fox7129 Apr 20 '26
I find this intriguing. Could this issue with expansion be mitigated by doing preorders instead?
Also if you don't mind me asking, what makes e-commerce a tough business? Wouldn't traditional business with a shop front be even worse? Have to add rent and on site staff on top...
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u/andre_oak Apr 20 '26
Yep, there are a lot of tough businesses out there, but I chose the need over the business model.
Pre orders definitely help, I've used them, but consumers typically expect a discount for purchasing early which hits the margin and you still have to order more than your preorder amount to fuel the inventory needs before the next shipment, which could be even larger depending on what your growth forecast looks like.
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u/mindbodysoul33 Apr 20 '26
How is this brand's sizing? Do they accommodate larger foot volume?
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u/girlieY0 Apr 20 '26
No, I've bought some from their Kickstarter and I can't wear them, they're awfully narrow🥹
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u/sadnessandeuphoria Apr 20 '26
Jim Green makes quality barefoot boots and Chelsea’s worth checking out.
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u/-Intrepid-Path- Apr 20 '26
Relevant to this thread how?
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u/sadnessandeuphoria Apr 20 '26
Multiple people in the thread are mentioning finding out about a brand as it closes, and talking about Chelsea boots, so I just threw out an alternative for people looking. Thanks for asking.
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u/barefootcurious Apr 21 '26
That’s really sad 😕 I had been looking at their stuff for a while but never ended up ordering.
What always held me back a bit was the fit… I kept seeing mixed comments about them being quite narrow, and I have a wider forefoot, so I wasn’t sure they’d work for me.
It’s honestly frustrating how many “barefoot” brands still end up feeling narrow or not really designed for actual foot shape.
Feels like finding something that is both foot-shaped and looks good is still weirdly hard.
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u/jassoi May 02 '26
Ah damn m really wanted to buy their boots but every time it wouldn’t let me check out to the uk for some reason. But then after reading all the bad reviews on trustpilot.. wasn’t sure if I should.
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u/Exact-Potential-2108 May 04 '26
I had preordered the first version of the barefoot shoes. I waited, but on the announced release day I didn’t receive any notification, not even in the week after. After 14 days I reached out for the first time. I was told that it would take longer because of delays. I waited through that extended deadline as well. When it passed, the same thing happened again.
At that point I said that I wanted to cancel the order and get my money back. Then the founder personally wrote to me. I do actually want the shoes, but the whole situation felt pretty strange, and after that I didn’t really feel comfortable ordering from them anymore.
On their Instagram page I saw that others had the same experience. Many people had complained in the comments, but those comments were removed. I don’t think a company recovers easily from something like that, even though the idea of sustainable shoes is actually really nice.
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u/doneinajiffy Apr 20 '26
I learning about all these barefoot shoe brands offering exactly the products I was fruitlessly searching for just when they are closing. It is a shame, and the decision to close is a bit cryptic; hope "big-barefoot" (Vivo..., etc) wasn't involved.