Benchmark run 14 September 2026, UK
When a buyer asks ChatGPT for shoes made in England, a handful of brands get named. Is yours one of them?
The questions buyers ask
Footwear buyers are starting to ask AI the questions they used to ask a shop assistant: which brands, what fits, what is worth paying for, and where can I buy it today. We wrote ten of those questions and ran them across three engines, three times each, on 14 September 2026.
"I want to buy a pair of quality leather shoes made in England. What are the best brands in 2026 and why?"
"Which UK trainer shops are best for limited edition and hard to find releases?"
"Is it worth paying £300 or more for Goodyear welted shoes, or is a £150 pair fine?"
"Which UK shoe brands make wide fit shoes for men?"
"Where can I buy Nike Dunk Low in the UK at retail price today?"
The full list of ten is at the bottom of the page.
What the engines answer today
They answer with confidence, drawing on sources you do not control.
ChatGPT, asked for shoes made in England, ranked six Northamptonshire makers and told the buyer:
"'Made in England' and 'British brand' aren't the same thing, and the construction and factory matter enormously."
ChatGPT, 14 September 2026
It then warned:
"Don't assume every Loake is made in England. You specifically want the Loake 1880 Made in England range."
ChatGPT, 14 September 2026
Both quotes are verbatim from the ChatGPT app, 14 September 2026.
Crockett & Jones got the top spot. The answer cited its own site, which says "cutting, stitching, lasting, welting and polishing are all done in England". Edward Green and Tricker's were cited from their own sites too. Cheaney and Barker were described from a listicle.
For limited trainers, Footpatrol came first on Google AI Mode and on ChatGPT. ChatGPT cited Footpatrol's own page, which "specifically describes its range as including 'top releases, unique pieces'". END., size? and Offspring followed. Kick Game appeared on Google in the resale group, described from Time Out and Sneaker Freaker, with no link. ChatGPT did not name it.
Across the 90 benchmark answers, Reddit was the most cited source in this sector, with 30 citations. Loake's own site was second, with 19. Skechers, which we did not list, was recommended in 12 answers. Edward Green in 9.
Why footwear pages fail the engines
The decisive facts in footwear are fit, construction and origin. Across the 20 domains we sampled, those facts sit in a size chart image, a tab, a PDF or a marketing paragraph more often than they sit in structured product data.
We could sample product pages on 13 of the 20 footwear domains. 4 of the 13 had no Product schema on any sampled page. 7 had no rating in their structured data. 10 had no GTIN. Nike, New Balance and END. return a 403 to GPTBot, PerplexityBot and OAI-SearchBot. Cheaney returns a 403 to GPTBot and ClaudeBot, and still gets recommended, from other people's pages.
So the engine knows your brand from a 2024 round-up, and it knows your competitor's factory from your competitor's page. That is the gap.
The benchmark: 20 UK footwear brands and retailers, 14 September 2026
What we tested. 10 buyer questions. 3 AI engines. 3 runs of every question. 90 answers. UK market. 14 September 2026.
90 answers · 10 buying questions · 3 AI engines · 3 runs per question · UK · 14 September 2026
20 brands.
Named = mentioned anywhere in the answer. Recommended = put forward as an option. Own site cited = at least one citation in the answer pointed to the brand's own domain.
Read END. against Loake. END. was named in 12 answers and recommended in 8, and not one of those answers cited endclothing.com. Loake was named in 29 and its own site was cited in 21. Both are visible. Only one of them is the source the engine uses to explain itself.
| Brand | Named | Recommended | Own site cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loake | 29 | 19 | 21 |
| Crockett & Jones | 22 | 20 | 16 |
| Cheaney | 21 | 17 | 7 |
| Clarks | 15 | 14 | 9 |
| size? | 15 | 11 | 9 |
| Grenson | 15 | 8 | 4 |
| Tricker's | 14 | 13 | 3 |
| New Balance | 14 | 8 | 8 |
| Offspring | 13 | 12 | 3 |
| Vivobarefoot | 13 | 10 | 5 |
| Solovair | 12 | 11 | 5 |
| END. | 12 | 8 | 0 |
| Nike | 12 | 2 | 9 |
| Footpatrol | 10 | 10 | 7 |
| Dr. Martens | 10 | 3 | 1 |
| Schuh | 10 | 2 | 2 |
| Hotter | 7 | 7 | 1 |
| Kick Game | 7 | 6 | 1 |
| Footasylum | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Oliver Sweeney | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Method note: the 90 benchmark answers come from 10 buying questions asked of 3 engines through their APIs (Perplexity, OpenAI with web search, Gemini with grounding), 3 times each, on 14 September 2026 from the UK. The quoted answers above come from the consumer apps (Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity) on the same day and are not counted in the table. Answers move from day to day. A brand named in a question ("Loake vs Cheaney vs Crockett & Jones") is counted in every answer to that question, so read Loake, Cheaney and Crockett & Jones with that in mind.
Not in the table but recommended by the engines: Skechers, Edward Green, Blundstone, Be Lenka, Vegetarian Shoes, John Lobb.
Disclosure: Geoffy ran this benchmark. The brand lists were fixed before the run and not changed after it. No brand paid to be included or excluded. Where a brand in a table is a Geoffy customer, it is shown with its real numbers and is not treated differently in the text. Full method and raw answers on request.
Where Geoffy fits for footwear
Get AI to understand the facts that make your footwear worth recommending.
Geoffy turns the facts buried across your catalogue into first-party product evidence that AI engines can read and cite. For footwear that means:
- Construction and origin as data: Goodyear welted, Blake stitched, cemented; the factory town; the range that is made in England and the range that is not.
- Fit as data: last, width fitting, whether the shoe runs small, half sizes, the sizing note buyers ask about most.
- Care and resoling: whether the shoe can be resoled, and by whom.
- Availability for release questions: launch dates, raffle mechanics, stock status per size, in a form an agent can read.
- A grounding file per product, so an engine that asks "is this made in England" gets the answer from you, not from Reddit.
Run the ten footwear questions against your brand. Free, ten minutes, no install.
Works with Shopify and WordPress.
The ten questions
- I want to buy a pair of quality leather shoes made in England. What are the best brands in 2026 and why?
- Which UK trainer shops are best for limited edition and hard to find releases?
- What are the best everyday boots in the UK for comfort, durability and value?
- What are the best barefoot shoes for everyday wear in the UK?
- Loake vs Cheaney vs Crockett & Jones: which is best value for a first pair of Goodyear welted shoes?
- Which UK shoe brands are vegan and where can I buy them?
- What are the most comfortable shoes for standing all day, for women, available in the UK?
- Which UK shoe brands make wide fit shoes for men?
- Is it worth paying £300 or more for Goodyear welted shoes, or is a £150 pair fine?
- Where can I buy Nike Dunk Low in the UK at retail price today?