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Size and fit guides for sports shoes and yoga wear: how to write one that cuts returns
A fit guide cuts returns on sports shoes and yoga wear when it says how this model fits: insole length in centimetres from your own stock, a width note, and a squat photograph.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
On this page
- Why the number on the box is not enough
- What a shoe fit guide says, written out
- Measure your own stock in an afternoon
- Yoga wear needs a different guide
- Imagine a Chennai store with one awkward trail shoe
- Where the guide sits decides whether anyone reads it
- When a fit guide will not cut returns
- What to do next
Say a pair of running shoes comes back marked "size issue". You ring the buyer and he says he wears a 9 in everything, so he ordered a 9. Your 9 runs short. A fit guide cuts that return when it answers his real question: does my usual size work in this shoe? That means the insole length of each size in centimetres, measured from your own stock, a plain width note and a rule for in-between feet. Yoga wear is a second job, with its own table further down.
Why the number on the box is not enough
The size on the box is a label, not a measurement. A UK 9 from one brand and a UK 9 from another are built on different lasts, and a road shoe and a trail shoe from the same brand can fit differently again. The buyer cannot see that in a photograph. He has his old pair, his office shoes and a guess.
Where returns are easy, some buyers stop guessing and order two sizes; our note on the order-two-sizes habit covers that.
The brand's catalogue chart does not fix this. It was drawn up for the whole range, so it tells the buyer how the brand labels sizes and nothing about how this shoe fits.
What a shoe fit guide says, written out
Here is the block to place beside the size buttons for one model. The centimetres come from your own measuring; the length and width wording is an example, so write what your stock and return notes show.
How this shoe fits
Insole length, measured from our stock: UK 6 __ cm, UK 7 __ cm, UK 8 __ cm, UK 9 __ cm, UK 10 __ cm.
Length: runs short against the other road shoes we sell. Between sizes? Take the bigger one.
Width: snug across the toes. Wide feet, or thick cotton socks, go up one size.
Compared with: if you wear a 9 in [another model you stock], take a 10 here.
Measure at home: in the evening, in the socks you will wear, stand on a sheet of paper with your heel against a wall. Mark your longest toe and measure to the wall in centimetres. Choose the size whose insole is about a thumb's width longer than your foot.
The comparison line does the most work. It starts from a shoe the buyer has already worn and trusts.
Measure your own stock in an afternoon
Start with the models that come back most for size, one pair in each size. Take the sock liner out, lay it along a steel rule and write the length down. Where the liner is glued in, measure inside the shoe with a tailor's tape and note that you did.
For width, ask two people on your team with different feet to try each model and write one honest line. "Snug across the toes" is enough. Nobody needs a lab.
Do not copy the brand chart into the centimetre column; the figures must come from your own stockroom.
Yoga wear needs a different guide
Leggings and sports bras come back for reasons a shoe never does. Publish these, and each one heads off a particular return.
| Publish this | The return it heads off |
|---|---|
| Waist and hip in centimetres for each size, measured on the body | "Too tight at the waist", from a buyer who chose by her jeans size |
| Length from waistband to hem, with the model's height | Full-length leggings that stop mid-calf on a tall buyer or bunch at the ankle on a short one |
| Rise and stretch, in plain words | "Rolls down when I bend", or a size bought small "because it stretches" |
| A photograph in a deep squat, in daylight, against a plain wall | "See-through", the return that also brings a one-star review |
Shoot the squat photograph on your own stock, not the supplier's catalogue images, and name the fabric and its weight in the caption.
Imagine a Chennai store with one awkward trail shoe
Imagine a sports store in Chennai that sells running shoes on its own site and on one marketplace, along with leggings from a unit in Tiruppur. Every shoe page carries the same chart image, the brand's UK, US and EU table. The owner sorts a season's return notes by model. The road shoes come back for length. One trail shoe keeps coming back with "tight on the sides".
Every size return had been read as a length problem, and the answer had always been a bigger chart. The trail shoe needed two lines on its own page instead: "snug across the toes" and "wide feet, go up one size". On the leggings the notes say "see-through", so the store reshoots in a squat and states the fabric weight.
The test is the next batch of return notes. If "tight on the sides" still shows up on that trail shoe, it is too narrow for the store's buyers. The honest answer then is to stop reordering it, or to stock the wide version where the brand makes one.
Where the guide sits decides whether anyone reads it
A guide hidden in a tab at the foot of the page is read mostly by people who would have chosen correctly anyway. Put a "How this fits" link right next to the size buttons, and on a phone open the block in place instead of sending the buyer to a new page. On a marketplace you control less, so use the description and one image slot for the fit block, within whatever the platform currently allows.
Keep your own return codes too, written in the buyer's words: too short, too long, tight at the sides, loose at the heel, see-through, waistband rolls. When one code repeats on one product, that product's fit note is wrong.
When a fit guide will not cut returns
It will not touch returns about colour or feel, which are photograph problems, nor a returns policy so easy that buyers order two sizes out of habit.
What to do next
Start with the three shoes that come back most: measure them, write the block, and read the next batch of return notes against it. Size is a return that sports gear shares with clothing, and the wider online sale sits under e-commerce sales and marketing. If you want the fit block built into every product page, e-commerce website development is the service, and tell us what you need is the first step.
